Summary:

Merging lands and bartering them has become one of regular practices to achieve the right spatial and economic environment for agricultural production. European Union funds will made their resources available for merging and bartering practices, which will surely result in the increased number of projects related to agricultural land management in Poland.
The presented paper has been aimed at preliminary rating of the municipalities in Malopolskie Voivodship area according to the necessity of introducing there land merging or bartering. The paper presents spatial development of the municipalities with a view to the required merging and bartering to be initiated.
The research has revealed wide diversity over the concerned municipalities with regards to land merging or bartering of lands to be executed. The municipalities from latitudinal band (at the latitude of Krakow) running from west to east of the studied region exhibited the highest needs for the concerned land management arrangements. In the municipalities in Krakow proximity such practices were found highly required. The middle part of Malopolskie Voivodship represents the area of relatively small urgency for such works.
It is worth concluding that the conducted research provides support to the local governments in decision making process on preliminary merging or bartering the lands, and initiating steps to submitting applications for financing the activities from EU funds.