Stara Kamienica - Nemo

Government policy +/- - Priority of social economical rural problems and problems with
integration in the EU;
- Government has attention for biological farming: there are fees for supporting the change
from traditional to ecological farming.
Cooperation between links in the chain and the institutes - - No Retailing and
processing industry
- Strong division of organisations
- little market orientation
- No link between control and certification
Home market - - No Motivation, no buying power, unknowns with biological products
Totally +/- Potentially, Poland can produce a lot biological products, but there a lot of
problems they can encounter on the long term.
3.3 ECEAT Poland
One of the options to get subsidies for changing farms to ecological farming is to apply for
help by Eceat. In the next chapter the goal of Eceat and the way they work will be explained.
It’s one example for farmers to start ecological farming in combination to agro tourism.
The mission of the European Centre for Ecological Agriculture and Tourism-Poland
(ECEAT-Poland) is to use ecological tourism to organic farms as a tool to help small farmers
make a sometimes difficult transition from conventional agriculture to ecological agriculture.
In this way the farmers benefit financially while environmentally sound practices are spread,
and the natural landscape, biodiversity and local culture and traditions are protected and
shared with visitors. By working in a cooperative and ecological way, small Polish farmers
will be able to protect their livelihoods and their traditional way of life in a coming period of
difficult economic and social transformation.
Since the farmers in the District of Stara Kamienica can use some support by transforming
their farm or even starting a farm in combination with agro-tourism, the regulations and
options ECEAT Poland should be considered carefully. The regulations of ECEAT will be
explained. Then the advantages and disadvantages of joining ECEAT from the viewpoint of
farmers of Stara Kamienica can be analyzed by the farmers themselves, because many farms
are in different situations.
ECEAT-Poland was co-founded by Jadwiga Lopata, who is an Ashoka Fellow. Ashoka:
Innovators for the Public is a non-profit international organization supporting social
entrepreneurs from developing countries who have innovative plans for positive social
change.
How ECEAT projects operate:
a. First small farms are identified whose farmers are interested in the idea of ecological
farming and ecological tourism
b. The farms are visited and the farmers are advised about participating in the project and its
advantages.