Does a young farmer have to have agricultural education?

This coming Wednesday, June 19 this year. – in accordance with the schedule for the recruitment of applications for support under PS CAP 2023-2027 – ARiMR will start accepting applications for the Premium for a young farmer.

This recruitment will last until August 19. Up to 200,000 are up for grabs. zloty!

Persons who are at least 18 years old on the day of submitting the application and not more than 40 years old (less than 41 years old) and have not used the Young Farmer in the past can apply for the bonus. The condition is also that they started agricultural activity no earlier than 24 months before the date of submitting the application (or plan to do so within the next 12 months).

Does a young farmer have to have agricultural education?

– No, you don’t have to have it at the time of submitting the application, but you lose valuable education points. Of course, he must complete them until the second installment of the bonus is paid. Importantly, he must start learning within a year of the payment of the first bonus installment at the latest – explains Dawid Kowalczyk, president of the Polish Agency for Obtaining EU Funds.

Yes, the regulations are clear: aid (i.e. a premium for a young farmer) is granted to a natural person who has appropriate professional qualifications or skills useful for conducting agricultural activities on a farm as a manager or undertakes to supplement them, excluding work experience, within a period of 3 years from the date of payment of the first aid installment and will start improving qualifications (education) no later than 12 months from the date of granting the aid.

Professional qualification or skill requirements

The condition of having appropriate professional qualifications or skills may be considered met if a person has:

1) higher education and a doctoral degree:

• agricultural (in the discipline of: zootechnics, zootechnics and fisheries, horticulture, agriculture and horticulture, veterinary medicine, agronomy or agricultural engineering) or
• veterinary or

2) higher education – completed first-cycle studies or second-cycle studies, or uniform master’s studies, or master’s studies, at:

• field of study: agriculture, horticulture, veterinary medicine, agricultural and forestry technology, zootechnics or landscape architecture or
• fields of study within which the scope of education, curriculum or education standards include content related to agricultural activities, for a total of at least 120 hours, or
• another field of study and:
  – at least 3 years of work experience in agriculture or
  – completed postgraduate studies in the field related to agricultural activity, i.e. those whose program covers at least one of the following issues: agricultural economics, organization or technology of agricultural production, marketing of agricultural products, agricultural accounting or agribusiness, or

3) secondary or secondary vocational education and:

• qualifications in the profession: agricultural technician, gardening technician, landscape architecture technician, horse breeding technician, beekeeping technician, veterinary technician – if animal breeding or breeding is carried out on the farm, agribusiness technician, agricultural mechanization technician, agricultural mechanization and agrotronics technician, rural tourism technician or rural tourism technician, or
• at least 4 years of work experience in agriculture, or

4) basic vocational or basic vocational education and qualifications in the profession: farmer, gardener, beekeeper or mechanic-operator of agricultural vehicles and machines, or

5) the title of a qualified worker or the title of a master obtained in out-of-school forms, or the professional title or the professional title of a master, in the profession of farmer, gardener, beekeeper or mechanic-operator of agricultural vehicles and machines, and at least 3 years of work experience in agriculture.

Adequate qualifications obtained in another country in accordance with the legal provisions in force in Poland in this regard are also taken into account.

The period of employment in agriculture is considered to be the period counted until the date of submitting the bonus application in which a given person:

1) was subject to full farmers’ social insurance as a farmer or household member or to social insurance for conducting agricultural activity in another Member State of the European Union or a Member State of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), or

2) was employed on the farm under an employment contract, in a position related to agricultural production.

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