Outstanding politician, parliamentarian and educator in the Second Republic of Poland, Member and V-chairman of the Polish Parliament in 1919 - 1927, three times Minister of Agriculture and Agrarian reform, determined advocate of the agrarian reform in Poland and intellectually and practically involved in this process. In spite of tremendous economic and socio-political barriers and difficulties the process of agrarian reform was slowly continued under his program and supervision. Thanks to his determination and efforts around 35% of peasant families benefited from the process and the area of land owned by small farmers increased by roughly 20%. In 1939 - 1957 on emigration ( political exile ) in France, Italy and Palestine. In 1958 he returned to Poland and in spite of his advanced age he soon become very active in public life particularly in agricultural education and the human factor in agricultural development. During his whole life to the end of his days all his activities were devoted to people and their economic and intellectual development and life improvement.

The article contains a comparative analysis of selected elements of the demographic situation, employment and unemployment in Poland, rural areas included, and in the remaining EU member-states as well as some other European countries. The main object of analysis were the to-date trends (chiefly those prevailing since 1990) and predicted tendencies (until 2030) relating to growth/fall in total population and rural population, the level of natality and mortality, the population's structure according to sex, age and the level of education, the employment rate and frequency of employment in agriculture and of selfemployment, the rate of unemployment and selected features of unemployment. Data available from Eurostat and other international sources as well as from Polish statistical sources served as the basis for comparison. Whenever it was possible the examined phenomena were presented according to the division into urban and rural areas. The conducted comparisons made it possible to determine similarities and differences in the examined processes and structures in Poland and other European countries as well as some factors responsible for these similarities and differences, to determine the role of Poland in the shaping of these phenomena in the European Union and the distance that separates Poland from the more advantageous state existing in the EU.

Despite its title, the Act on the Shaping of Agrarian System of April 11, 2003 actually regulates the transfer of ownership rights to agricultural property. The Act's solutions cover just a fragment, although an important one, of the agrarian system, i.e. ownership relations. However, even within this small fragment of the agrarian system the Act fails to introduce coherent and mature legal solutions serving to actively and rationally support desirable changes in the agrarian structure of farms. It should be noted that the Act does not envisage any legal instruments that could prevent irrational division of farms. As far as the prevention of excessive concentration of land is concerned the Act indirectly introduces a 300-hectare limit but envisages no absolute ban on the enlargement of farms beyond a definite acreage. In addition, the Act widens, in an unprecedented way, the circle of persons considered to possess the necessary theoretical "qualifications" to conduct agricultural activity, which practically allows every person that has any type of secondary-school or higher education to buy arable land. The possibility created for the Agricultural Property Agency (ANR) to interfere /via pre-emption and the right to purchase?/ in every purchase of agricultural property sold under a contract, and the final character of its decisions, which cannot be appealed against, put a question mark over the equilibrium between the sides and the constitutional right of citizens to file complaints concerning the activity of a state agency.

For more than twenty years now European agricultural policies have been striving, among other things, to support environment-friendly agriculture able to protect the natural landscape and contribute to the multifunctional development of rural areas. Assistance programmes designed to support various agricultural-environmental ventures, organic farming included, are based on the voluntary participation of farmers. From the point of view of the effectiveness of such programmes factors that encourage farmers to participate in their implementation are important. Studies have revealed a number of such factors, including those that characterize the assistance programmes themselves, the farmers (their code of values and their attitudes), the farms and external conditions. However, an analysis of the results of conducted research has not indicated in a clear way which of these factors are decisive for the change of methods of running a farm. In addition, the effectiveness of programmes addressed to farmers is understood not only in a behavioural way but also as a mental change. Dynamic models, which relate to the changes in mentality and attitudes, and the theory of innovation make it possible to explain some inconsistencies in the results of research concerning factors essential for the change in the methods of running a farm. It seems that factors which play an important role in Poland include: uncertainty stemming from the instability of policies, which is utilised by farmers at the time of taking decisions, and a cascading effect brought about by the appearance of effective actions in the situation of uncertainty.

The article presents the results of field research concerning the implementation of the Special Accession Programme for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD) in Poland. Surveys covering farmers-applicants for assistance available under the programme were conducted in two parts of Mazowieckie voivodeship: in its eastern part (former Białystok voivodeship) and in the area around Warsaw. The aim of the surveys was to collect the opinions of farmers about the programme at different stages of its implementation.

The LEADER programme evokes mixed reactions in Poland. Apart from enthusiastic opinions voices can be heard that the programme is too difficult and its implementation ought to be postponed. For some it means an occasion to acquire more funds from the European Union, whereas for others it means a chance for the emergence of a new grass-roots social movement that would complement in an essential way the activities of local governments. The real meaning of the programme for the Polish rural community will become known only in the coming years but the first twelve months of its formal implementation have yielded many suggestions and make it possible to draw some conclusions. The text describes the current and predicted position of the LEADER programme in Europe and contains conclusions and recommendations concerning its implementation in Poland.

The article represents an attempt at establishing whether the rural areas of Poland are becoming depopulated. Is there a problem of depopulation in the situation when migration of people from villages to towns is declining and the level of total population is relatively stable? If the answer is positive then it should be determined whether this phenomenon is more or less intense than in the past. Basing on the assumption that depopulation occurs when the decrease in the number of residents is accompanied by unfavourable changes in the demographic structure the author has delimited rural areas, which show the signs of depopulation, in accordance with the classification of communes done from the point of view of the scale of changes in population levels and features of the age and sex structure of the rural population. The conducted analyses have indicated that in regional systems the problem of depopulation of villages in Poland still exists although its scale is smaller than it was expected still in the late 1980s. The latter is undoubtedly attributable to the declining migration of residents from rural to urban areas. The conducted research has proved that serious demographic problems characterize not more than 6% of Poland's communes. These are areas where the phenomenon of depopulation occurred early and where the deformation of demographic structure reached a high degree a relatively long time ago.

One of the of Polish agriculture weakness is fragmented agrarian structure determinated by economic (low level of economic development, high volume of labour resources), social and cultural., affecting by low competitiveness of that national economy sector. Aiming at production resources concentration in agriculture Polish Parliament has passed in 2001 act on early retirement pensions scheme in agriculture, thanks to that farmers were entitled to transfer their holdings in 2002-2004 to other farms for early retirement pensions. The presented paper take a trial of evaluation the efficiency of early retirement pensions scheme affect on agrarian restructurisation in Polish agriculture. The conducted analyses shows that discussed scheme do not fulfill the intended aims and functions (structural and social). The direct reason of that situation were a defective implementation of its mechanisms and do not taking in account the economic, social and cultural determinants on the stage of its preparation.

The article presents the methodological issues concerning the question of quality of human resources and quality of life survey and analysis in rural areas. The basic analytical category such as human capital, social capital, cultural capital and quality of life and theirs possible relationships are taken into consideration It makes out the reason of profound investigation of quality of human resources in Małopolska which constitutes the region of extreme concentration of human factor in rural areas. The research presupposes practical implication this characteristics of human, social and cultural capital which assure to the full extent the opportunities of renovation and development to Małopolska.