An analysis, identification and assessment of the local conditions of agrotourismdevelopment in rural areas is performed in the paper. The important role oftourism both in the state policy and regional policy have been shown in the stateand regional documents. In most of European countries off-farming activities becomemore and more important as a source of income for farmers' families. Insome regions agrotourism can be regarded as a significant non-agricultural activity.In Poland the data of Agricultural Census indicates that the number of farmswith off-farms activity increased. The agrotourist farms are still more and moreimportant in many parts of Poland, especially in the wi tokrzyskie voivodship.The local and voivodship authorities are obliged to improve and invest in agrotouristbase, also using the European Union funds.This study is the analysis of natural and social-economic elements of geographicalenvironment in the wi tokrzyskie voivodship. The article is a trial ofshowing how rural areas are diversified for agrotourism. ...
The current paper presents the results of evaluation of the influence of selected measures within Rural Development Programme (RDP), such as spatial development, afforestation, land consolidation, water management, village renewal and agri-environmental programmes on rural areas in Poland.The data used in the study cover the years 2004-2015, and were collected from the reports of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Polish Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARMA), Polish Central Statistical Office (CSO), with special consideration given to normative acts concerning the Rural Development Plan 2007-2013 and 2014-2020, and the results of a study on different aspects of rural development conducted at the Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation - State Research Institute in Puławy (IUNG-PIB). Our study clearly shows that aforementioned measures differ significantly in terms of the level of implementation in Poland. Thus, the spatial development operation, one of the most important activities in relation to the sustainable development of rural areas, has not been introduced in RDP as s separately task. Additionally, the initiatives regarding water retention were also not fully implemented under the RDP 2007-2013 because of the shortage of time. The process of land consolidation has contributed only to very little change in ...