A.R.L

SADKOWICE

In 2017 working with Warsaw University of Life Sciences Robins and Udy developed a further survey for the ARL project in Poland.

Sadkowice in the Łódź Voivodeship area is a rural, agricultural region of central Poland. Recognised as a major region for apple production, the area is dominated by working practices that go back generations. Unlike other Soviet era countries, Poland retained a majority of small privately owned farms. In the post-Soviet era, many of these have begun to expand to increase both production and profitability. Despite large numbers leaving agriculture during the 1990s as mechanisation and agrotechnology were increasingly invested in, Poland still retains Europe’s largest population of rural workers.

As Poland moves further into Western Europe, however, there are continuing industrial agricultural processes as well as wider shifts in daily activity that are leading to a change in the nature of rural life in the region. Migrant farm workers from Ukraine are employed to work in the orchards, and extensive agri-business companies transport the apples grown around Sadkowice throughout Europe as well as to Africa.

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