Reversion of Sheep Breeding in the North Podkarpacie Region
No. 27-0622-01

Podkarpacie is the most agricultural region in Poland with 60% of inhabitants living in the rural areas. The average farm size in this region is 3.5 ha of land and the quality of soil is poor. As a result the farmers are hardly self-sufficient. There are also not many employment opportunities for the farmers' employment out of agriculture. The official unemployment rate for Podkarpacie is 18%. In reality, however, unemployment rate is higher, since the official data don't include not registered agrarian unemployed.

The region of Podkarpacie has perfect conditions for keeping ruminants because of grasslands domination. This is why the farmers of this region always kept sheep. They found themselves in a dramatic situation when due to radical changes in demand preferences they couldn't find market for wool, wool products and wool sheep. Moreover, the prices for Polish wool were constantly decreasing making it impossible for the producers to make income.

The only chance for the small scale producers of Podkarpacie to continue their sheep breeding was to re-orient their activities into meat sheep production and to take advantage of increasing demand for organic Polish lamb. The farmers understood that they had to operate as a formal group and in 1998 they applied for official registration. It took them two years to satisfy all of the legal requirements and finally, in November 2001 they received official registration by the Local Governor as the first group of agricultural producers in Podkarpacie.

Getting status of producers' group was a great success that proved a real determination of the sheep breeders to work together for survival of their families! To start their activities they desperately needed to make initial investment in purchasing breeding meat sheep that they couldn't afford themselves. Impressed with their determination and hard work HPI decided to support them with development of their sheep breeding farms through HPI project that was initiated in 2002. In the framework of HPI project 32 farm families have received 15 ewe lambs and training. Currently, more than 50 families participates in this project.

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