Draft Amendment submitted by the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki .
The bill was submitted to the Sejm on August 12, 2025, and intends to introduce two changes to the content of fundamental acts for civil law transactions concerning agricultural land in Poland – the Act of April 11, 2003, on shaping the agricultural system (" AGR ") and the Act of April 14, 2016, on suspending the sale of real estate belonging to the Agricultural Property Resource of the State Treasury and amending certain acts (" AGR "). In today's article, we will discuss the changes that will be introduced to the AGR.
The first of the above-mentioned acts concerns trade between private market participants, and thus its scope and far-reaching consequences for every farmer in Poland. The main provisions of the Agricultural Property Act concern, among other things, the rules governing the sale of agricultural property, the concept of an individual farmer and their public obligations, the competence of the National Agricultural Support Center (KOWR) regarding pre-emptive rights, quantitative limits (and exceptions) on the area of agricultural holdings, and the obligation to personally manage agricultural holdings.
It is worth noting that this is an act of universal application to agricultural real estate within the meaning of Article 46 § 1 of the Civil Code with an area of agricultural land greater than 0.3 hectares, excluding real estate located in areas designated in spatial development plans for non-agricultural purposes. In this regard, Article 1a of the Agricultural Property Act also introduces exclusions primarily concerning agricultural real estate owned by the State Treasury, constituting internal roads, as well as land under ponds, constituting at least 70%. The Agricultural Property Act, as well as its definitional criteria and scope, constitute an advanced, up-to-date statement and are the subject of numerous studies. However, for the purposes of this article, it is sufficient to clearly emphasize that this act is of fundamental importance to every Polish farmer, and its planned amendment may affect virtually all market participants.
The second concerns the sale of real estate belonging to the State Treasury's Agricultural Property Resource, i.e., agricultural land owned by the State and managed by the National Agricultural Support Center (KOWR). Turning to the planned changes, the Draft Amendment proposes a change to the preamble to the Agricultural Property Act, which currently reads as follows:
– In order to strengthen the protection and development of family farms, which, under the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, constitute the basis of the agricultural system of the Republic of Poland, to ensure the proper management of agricultural land in the Republic of Poland, to ensure the food security of citizens and to support sustainable agriculture conducted in accordance with the requirements of environmental protection and conducive to the development of rural areas, this Act is hereby adopted.”
The proposed change is to frame it as follows:
"With a sense of particular responsibility for the future of Polish agriculture and the food security of its citizens, recognizing the deepening economic difficulties in Europe and the growing threats stemming from the influx of agricultural products from outside the borders of the European Union, convinced that Polish agriculture, based on family farms, requires real protection and support today, guided by the common political and social will to defend domestic agricultural production as the foundation of the independence, security and prosperity of the Republic of Poland, recognizing that in the current circumstances it is the duty of the public authorities to take consistent and systemic actions to permanently strengthen domestic agriculture and defend the interests of Polish farmers, assuming that this Act constitutes one of the elements of the implementation of this policy and a tool for the protection of Polish agricultural production as a whole, this Act is hereby adopted."
The content of the Draft Amendment clearly emphasizes increasing the state's share in trade, mainly through the postulated "consistent and systemic" actions.
For obvious reasons, the draft act does not directly address specific economic agreement plans, such as Mercosur (which we discussed in a previous article in " Lawyer on the Farm "), but it clearly and firmly affirms that Polish agriculture should be based on family farms , and this is precisely the form of agricultural activity the act is intended to favor. This draft also emphasizes the value of strengthening domestic agriculture and addresses shared political and social will, which may also indicate that it represents universal approval and encourages a unified position on this issue among all political parties in Poland.
The draft preamble also emphasises Poland's strong role in the European Union, which, as an informed observer, recognises the current economic changes, within which some EU countries (including in particular the so-called EU-15, the "old fifteen", i.e. the countries that formed the Union before its enlargement in 2004 to include the countries of the former Soviet bloc) are currently in an economic crisis, also felt in the sphere of agricultural production.
We would like to inform you that we will be closely monitoring the further development of the aforementioned draft law, and we invite you to read the next article in which we will present the changes that this amendment will introduce to the law.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
The law is current as of August 21, 2025.
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