DEER FARMING IN POLAND
Our Association is very young. It was created in June 1998 and at present has only 30 members. The main centre of the recently established Polish deer farming is the Research Station in Kosewo Gome which has belonged to the W Stefanski Institute of Parasitology of the Polish Academy of Sciences since 1991. The Station has been dealing with the problems of deer farming for the last 16 years.
In Poland at present there are 20 registered (in PDFA) deer farms; however, there are many others which are not registered until now. Among the registered farms, 12 are breeding Fallow deer while only 3 are breeding Red deer and 5 both Red and Fallow deer; 2 farms have Sika deer (Dybowsky). All Polish farms together have about 700 Fallow deer, 350 Red deer and 60 Sika deer.
An average farm area covers about 26 ha; most of them have less than 30 ha and only 4 have more than 50 ha (the biggest one has 170 ha). Practically all farms are still at the developing stage and it is difficult to give a precise estimation of their production and the size of the venison market in Poland. We should add that many people are still planning to establish new farms of smaller or larger size. There are two factors favourable for a rapid development of new deer farms in Poland: (i) a rather favourable general situation due to the current recession in traditional agriculture, and (ii) cheap land.
Unfortunately, legislation for deer farming remains unsolved. This is the main obstacle for establishing new farms and increasing investment in deer farming. In spite of our long-term efforts, neither Red deer nor Fallow deer have been recognised as farming animals. It is mainly a strong hunters’ lobby which is preventing their official recognition as new farming animals, thus keeping the monopoly for hunting and the venison market. The democratisation of life in Poland permits us hope, however, that in the near future we will be able to make progress in resolving this problem. As the Association, we started talks with our Ministry of Agriculture to include Red deer and Fallow deer in the list of farming animals. Now we are going through a very important period, because we expect discussion of this matter in our Parliament. In this situation, our membership of the Federation of European Deer Farmers’ Associations is very helpful and important to achieving success in our efforts for changing the present legislation.
