Importance of legal regulations resulting from technical harmonization in the European Union for improvement of work safety of farmers in Poland

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE

Accidents exert a negative effect on the quality and standard of living of rural inhabitants, especially when they make it impossible to continue work on a farm, or this work may be performed only to a limited extent. The creation of effective legal mechanisms which would guarantee the safety of operation of machinery is a crucial issue, it is of a preventive character and considerably limits the number of accidents. Approximately 16.1 million people live in the rural areas and around 2.3 million work in the agricultural sector, which represents 14.5% of all labour in Poland in 2019.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of the study was to evaluate the legal regulations resulting from the directives of technical harmonization in the European Union for improvement of safety of work with the use of agricultural machinery in Poland.

MATERIALS AND METHOD

The method was critical analysis of legal acts in effect, court rulings, and statistical data concerning accidentsoin farms, made available by the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund (KRUS).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE STATE OF KNOWLEDGE

As a result of Poland's membership of the European Union, rural areas were covered by globalization processes and single market rules, within which there function legal mechanisms of safety and quality of products.

CONCLUSIONS

Analysis of the 16 years of Poland's membership of the EU, resulted in positive results being observed in the use of the directives of technical harmonization, especially in reducing the number of accidents involving agricultural machinery. However, this improvement may result from using newly-purchased, modern and safer agricultural machinery covered by the conformity assessment, and preventive actions carried out by the Agricultural Social Insurance Fund. An impact of other factors, not analysed in the study, cannot be ruled out.