History of the Chair of Agricultural Economics and International Economic Relations

The present chair (in other words department) was created as a merger of the Chair of Agricultural Economics and the Chair of World Agriculture in 2000. This merger was forced by a school’s management decision to reduce the number of chairs. Nowadays the chair is composed of three divisions: Division of Agricultural Economics, Division of International Economic Relations and Division of Quantitative Methods. The first two are descendants of the former chairs, the third one was established in 2008.

The former Chair of Agricultural Economics was established together with the Faculty of Agricultural Economics, a predecessor of the present Faculty of Economic Sciences. In an organizational reform of 1970, the chair was incorporated into a newly created Institute of Agricultural Economics and Agrarian Policy as a Division of Agricultural Economics. In another reform of 1992, the institute was dismembered and the chair was reestablished.

Heads of the chair (alternatively a division) were professors Zenon Tomaszewski (1953-1978), Zbigniew Adamowski (1979-1987), Zdzisław Kozioł (1987-1991), again Zbigniew Adamowski (1992-1993), again Zdzisław Kozioł (1994-1996), Stanisław Stańko (1997-1999).

The most noteworthy research activity of the chair occured in 1982-1994, when the chair (respectively the division) lead under a guidance of the late professor Kozioł a series of all-country multi-executor research projects. Their results were published partially in numerous papers by different authors and summarized in multi-author books:

• Changes in productive factors in private peasant type farms in Poland and the effectiveness of farming. Edited by Warsaw Agricultural University Press, Warsaw 1985. (In Polish)
• The modernity of farming in the peasant type farms in Poland; results of an empirical research. Edited by Warsaw Agricultural University Press, Warsaw 1990. (In Polish)
• Processes of adaptation to the market economy in peasant type farming. Edited by Warsaw Agricultural University Press, Warsaw 1994. (In Polish).

More than 1800 farms in various parts of the country were repeatedly surveyed in this research and the results provided a unique information on processes taking place in peasant type farms. This research integrated with the chair a wide team of researchers from various institutions and was a base for numerous master’s, doctoral and habilitation theses and articles.

The concept of a collateral unit dealing with the economics of agriculture in foreign countries was initiated by professor Stefan Królikowski in 1961. It was times of gaining independence by formerly colonized countries and the economics of less developed countries was raising a common interest, also in governmental circles.

The Council of Faculty of Agricultural Economics moved a resolution to establish a Research Division of Agriculture in Developing Countries. It was accepted by the Senate of Warsaw Agricultural University and the division was organized within the Chair of Agrarian Policy, with professor Królikowski as its head.

In the reform of academic education In 1970/71 the division was liquidated and its members continued their research and tuition in the faculty’s Institute of Agricultural Economics and Agrarian Policy.

In this institute, a new Division of World Agriculture was organized by professor Mieczysław Adamowicz, who became its head, in 1976. In 1982 this division was renamed into a chair.

Heads of this chair (alternatively a division) were professors Mieczysław Adamowicz (1976), Bolesław Strużek (1976-1979), Jan Górecki (1980-1989), Henryk Lipiński (1989), again Jan Górecki (1990), Julian Krzyżanowski (1991-1996), Henryk Manteuffel (1997-1999).

Under the guidance of professor Górecki the chair rose In numbers and enlarged its research. It was the main executor and coordinator of a ministerial research grant ‘Tendencies of agricultural development in the world and their connection with the agri-food economy in Poland’. Since 1978, the chair was periodically publishing a series of thematically specified collections of articles under a title of ‘Problems of world agriculture’. In 2007, this series became o division of the Scientific Journal of Warsaw University of Life Sciences, a quarterly retaining the same title. One issue per year is published completely in English, the other mostly in Polish.

The merger of two chairs into the Chair of Agricultural Economics and International Economic Relations took place In 2000. Its heads were professors Stanisław Stańko (2000-2003) and Henryk Manteuffel (2003-2012).

A new Division of Quantitative Methods was created within the chair when the former Chair of Econometrics and Statistics and the Chair of Informatics formed a new Faculty of Applied Mathematics and Informatics while some their members stayed in the Faculty of Economic Sciences and were gathered in this division.

Beginning with 2004, the chair organizes annually an international conference under various titles connected with international relations in the agri-food economy, in particular these within the European Union, and their impact on Polish agriculture and agribusiness.