Mazovia
The Mazowieckie Voivodeship is a region of active social and economic development and a rapidly progressing urbanisation process. At the same time, agriculture is of vital importance for the region’s economy and a major part of the region’s inhabitants live in rural areas. Fast economic growth entails a large number of unfavourable tendencies such as increasing land prices, negative demographic changes concerning inhabitants of rural areas, landscape degradation and urban pressure on the areas of natural beauty. The abovementioned phenomena are particularly intense in the Metropolitan Area of Warsaw.
In the voivodeship, agricultural landscape predominates, consisting mainly of arable land and orchards. 20 % of the region’s area is covered with forests, mainly pine and oak. In Mazovia, a remnant of backwoods, which used to cover Europe, is the Kampinos Forest. Additionally, there are six landscape parks and over a thousand nature reserves in the region.
The Region of Mazovia has a considerable potential for food and agricultural product processing. It is a huge source of horticulture and fruit-growing. Approximately 30% of the area of orchards in Poland are located in Mazovia, which constitutes over 40% of national fruit production. Over half the apples and 25% of strawberries are produced in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. Mazovia is also a leading producer of vegetables and the second largest producer of basic cereals in Poland. Moreover, the Mazowieckie Voivodeship is a leading producer of milk in Poland. Meat production is another of the region’s strong points.
Fruit-growing is concentrated mainly in the southern part of the region. Market gardening, on the other hand, develops mainly along the Vistula River and in the southwest part of the Warsaw conurbation. Modern diary farms can be found in the northern part of the region, whereas aviculture is located in northwest areas.
|
|
The Mazowiecke Village Museum in Sierpc Poland. Photo: Grzegorz Sledz
|
Mitigating the negative effects of city sprawl requires seizing the development opportunities of Mazovia’s rural areas concentrated around the conurbation. It is necessary to make good use of the peri-urban areas’ potential: i.e. the proximity of the market for food products, the possibility to serve recreational and tourist purposes or the provision of all kinds of services to the city dwellers. At the same time, it needs to be ensured that all these processes progress with due respect for the natural environment and preservation of the nature of peri-urban areas.
The challenges that our region faces include, on the one hand, prevention of problems of peri-urban areas, such as ageing society, a lack of young farmers, creation of job opportunities outside agriculture and life quality improvement and, on the other, streaming for the increased penetration of development processes from the metropolis to rural areas and for the reduction of interregional diversity.
Purple provides our region with the possibility to exchange experiences and best practices regarding stimulation of peri-urban area development. As a result of our participation in the Peri-Urban Regions Platform we gain access to the knowledge possessed by other network members. We are interested in activities related to the development of the local products market, shaping open spaces and taking advantage of the natural environment potential and cultural heritage for the development of peri-urban areas.
General data:
| Country: |
Poland |
| Total area: |
3.559.800 |
| Population: |
5.136.000 |
| Density: |
144.3 hab/km2 |
| Agriculture land use: |
67 % |
| Arable land: |
72.2% |
| Main economic activities: |
Food and drink processing, Chemical industry, Telecommunication production and services |
| Main agricultural products |
Potatoes, Apples |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Last updated: 31 Oct 2007