The article discusses the progress of changes in the area structure of individual farms and related to this changes in the number of workers in agriculture as well as the issue of unused labor resources in Poland. The research material are public statistics data (Polish Statistical Office - GUS) and the results of own research carried out at IAFE-NRI. A detailed analysis of the decline in the share of people working in agriculture among the total number of employed in our country indicates that in the recent period the scale of decline in the value of this indicator is accelerating. These tendencies were mainly the result of a much larger than before increase in the number of non-agricultural workers, especially among rural residents.

Change in the socio-economic system and then the accession of Poland to the European Union as well as globalization changed the Polish agriculture demonstrating, at the same time, a number of its weaknesses. Transformations taking place in agriculture are significant not only in economic but also in social terms, especially in the context of ensuring food safety as well as performing functions of a non-market nature by the segment of the economy. The premise for substantiating the need to analyze changes in agriculture is also large support for this sector from public funds. For this reason, the possibilities to make development processes in agriculture more dynamic are of particular significance. In the paper results of a statistical-descriptive analysis of the process of structural transformations in agriculture in the first decade of the 21st century as well as factors determining the pace and directions of changes taking place are presented. The reasoning was based on selected indicators describing changes in basic agricultural structures which determine the economic potential and competitive capacities of agricultural farms to the main extent. Due to the significant regional diversity of the Polish agriculture, changes in the structures of the agricultural sector were also analyzed from this perspective. The paper refers to individual agriculture, constituting the dominant segment of the agricultural sector in Poland. It was based on data from common statistics as well as results of representative field studies conducted periodically by the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IERiGŻ-PIB) on a sample of approx. 0.2% of the actual number of individual farms.

Primary objective of the study is the empirical verification of the hypothesis that countries of the Visegrad Group, although different in terms of the agrarian structures, face the same problems related to rural systems, population and conditions for growth in rural economy. We base on Eurostat data and literature studies to show the basic common and different characteristics of rural development in all four analyzed countries. It can be considered that while the Visegrad Group countries are characterized by different models of agricultural development that affect the picture of rural areas in these regions, structural problems, such as unfavorable demographic trends and the general level of economic development in relation to the EU average remain at a similar level. It should be emphasized that it is agriculture as a sector, its diversity in particular countries, diversified level of development (agricultural productivity) that makes it difficult to integrate development mechanisms directed by individual countries to rural areas.