Production of vegetables in Poland belongs to the most intensive branches of agricultural production. Vegetable production in Poland takes place in greenhouses, tunnel-like chambers of poliethylene either heated or non-heated and as field cultivation. In south western Poland, except of a few big collectivized greenhouses, vegetables are grown on scattered individual farms. The period of the last 10 years has been characterized by a set back in the development of vegetable production and in the last few years simply by the stagnation. Greenhouse production takes place in constructionally time-worn objects. The whole vegetable production is characterized by low level of mechanization and therefore it needs great expenditure of labour. Further development of vegetable production depends on many factors of technical, economical and biological nature.
On the basis of investigations carried out on 33 individual farms of Cracow voivodship economic and energetistic analysis of growing field vegetables has been done. Investigations were carried out on farms of the area from 0,42 ha to 8,5 ha of arable land. Following vegetables were analysed: late white cabbage, summer cauliflower, cucumber, lettuce. The above work presents production characteristics of investigated farms, structure of energetistic expenditure and structure of production costs. Field vegatable growing is characterized by great scattering of production, low level of mechanization and great expenditure of human labour.
Inputs on greenhouse production connected with the use of equipment - counted according to cumulated energy consumption method - were 4.5 - 6.5% of total material costs. In greenhouses older than 20 years, the annual costs of repairing were from 575 to 6105 Polish złoty/1 m² of greenhouse area. Cost of greenhouse modernization ranged from 1488 to 2089 Polish złoty/1 m² total area per year (according to 1992 level of prices).