Net impact of support implemented under the young farmer premium sub-measure

The aim of this study was to attempt an assessment of the net impact on the competitiveness of agricultural holdings of support implemented under M6.1 "Premiums for young farmers" under the Polish 2014-2020 RDP. For this purpose, an analysis of the economic situation of the holdings of the beneficiaries of this sub-measure was carried out. This analysis took two years. The first year of the study was when the farm received the first instalment of aid under the support of young farmers. The second period examined was 2020 - the last year data was available. The observed changes between these years were confronted with changes taking place in farms that did not benefit from the support mentioned above, which were characterised by a clear similarity in terms of the analysed key characteristics defining productive activities in agriculture with the farms of the beneficiaries. Therefore, a counterfactual approach was applied, which allowed the capture of this part of the variability of the analysed indicators of the economic situation of agricultural holdings, which were the result only of the impact of the exogenous factor, which in this case was supported under M6.1.

The Polish FADN database was used to create a control group and obtain information on farms' economic and financial situations.

The first research challenge was to prepare a research and control sample. Data from holdings of beneficiaries of M6.1 (separate research samples) were used for the analysis. Since under the 2014-2020 RDP, the first call for applications from farmers interested in support under the sub-measure in question took place in August and September 2015, and the first payments were made only in 2016, meaning the earliest year considered for analysis was 2016. Unfortunately, the number of farms whose owners received support was unsatisfactory, so it was decided that only farms that received the first instalment of the premium in 2017 or later would be taken into account for the analysis.

The analysis showed a clear net positive impact of the support implemented under M6.1 on the competitiveness of agricultural holdings. For each of the four measures, there were more favourable changes in the case of farms in the test group than in the corresponding farms in the control group. In the farms of the beneficiaries of the analysed sub-measure, higher increases in gross value added, farm income, profit management or the level of competitiveness in the examined indicator were observed. In addition, it was noted that the beneficiaries' holdings recorded a higher increase in total production value, which is most likely related to a higher increase in their land resources and capital than in the control groups. It should, therefore, be recognised that M6.1 has had a positive impact on the competitiveness of agricultural holdings.

At the same time, it should be stressed that the analysis period was very short due to the availability of data and the fact that payments under M6.1 were made on a larger scale only in 2017. Considering this, it is important to stress the need to repeat the analysis in the following years in order to eliminate this weakness of the carried-out analysis.