The use of pesticides in Polish agriculture after integrated pest management (IPM) implementation

The aim of the conducted study was to characterize the attitudes and practices of Polish farmers in the area of performing chemical plant protection treatments. A particular attention was paid to identifying the relationship between the direction of changes in the volume of chemical plant protection product consumption and selected attributes of farms. The main time range of the analyses covered the period of 2013–2017. Statistical data and results of representative surveys carried out on a sample of 1101 farms in Poland were used in the research process. Due to the large number of variants of the analysed variables, a multiple correspondence analysis was used, which made it possible to determine the correlation between the examined features (direction of changes in pesticide use relative to the farm area, economic size of the farm and location of the farm). Statistical analysis showed the existence of strong relationships between the physical (1) and economic (2) size of farms and the direction of changes in pesticide consumption ((1) φ(2) = 0.0907; (2) φ(2) = 0.1141)). According to empirical studies, the reduction of pesticide consumption took place mainly on the smallest farms. The implementation of the integrated plant protection directive has not resulted in significant changes in the form of reduced pesticide use in large-scale field crops. This raises the need to modify the strategy and model of crop protection in large-scale field crops in Poland.