CURRENT PROBLEMS FACING APICULTURAL ACTIVITY: ECONOMIC AND LEGAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Scientific surveys, reports, and publications identify current threats to beekeeping, which include biological, chemical, environmental, economic, and legal factors. The last two, in particular, involve challenging circumstances that significantly undermine the national beekeeping sector. The aim of this article is to identify main problems of an economic and legal nature that pose threat to contemporary apicultural activity, and to offer some suggestions to solve them. The research results reveal main shortcomings of the beekeeping sector in Poland, among them lack of appropriate use of the pollinating activity of bees, which could contribute to a significant increase of the profitability and efficiency of apicultural activity. In the author’s opinion, both Polish agricultural entrepreneurs and beekeeping producers fail to take advantage of nomadic beekeeping and the so-called “pollination contracts”, which are successfully implemented e.g. in the United States. Furthermore, enhancing performance of the domestic beekeeping sector is possible – investments should be made to improve the resilience and competitiveness of the beekeeping industry, including the development of human capital by encouraging the younger generation of farmers to take up employment in the beekeeping sector. Consideration should also be given to a system of support for beekeeping and its taxation, so that amateur beekeepers can also benefit from the aid, while all beekeepers would be taxed in proportion to their income.