Summary:

Development of off-farm activities should be perceived as a driving force of economic development, providing the chances for rural communities to find occupation beside the agriculture and plays a key role in the activation of rural areas. The paper presents an analysis of the off-farm economic activities in agri-cultural holdings in Poland and in the European Union countries. Economic ac-tivities were discussed in view of the size and specific character of farms. Spatial diversification concerning entrepreneurship of agricultural holdings in the EU in the years 2003, 2005 and 2007 was presented and dominating forms of off-farm activities were indicated. In view of the conducted analysis it may be stated that off-farm economic activities constitute an important element of these small area (up to 5ha) agricul-tural farms’ operations, both in Poland and in the whole Europe. It was proved that the kinds of activities undertaken by the European Union and Polish farms differ considerably. In the EU the most willingly undertaken activity is agricul-tural product processing, whereas in Poland the greatest number of farms pro-vides services using their own equipment.