The role of science in sustainable development of agriculture according to the Polish scientific community

Sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas is a complex issue. Therefore, identifying the needs for sustainability, study the stage of its conceptualization, developing methods and implementation instruments, require the involvement of different scientific fields. Their role varies both in concept and implementation. The aim of the research was to determine the scientific community representatives’ opinion on the role of science and its particular fields in the implementation of sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas. This analysis was preceded by determining the importance of science against the background of other factors. Surveys were conducted using a structured interview with 128 representatives of socio-economic and the life sciences. Basic descriptive statistics were used to characterize the obtained results. The vast majority of respondents stated that implementing the ideas of sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas is possible and justified. Analyses have shown that at the current stage of sustainable development implementation, the most important factors include scientific research and transfer of new technologies (in addition to political decisions). Such an opinion is expressed by the experts regardless of scientific field they represent (socio-economic and the life sciences). Moreover, ecology has been indicated as a science that mostly contributes to implementing principles for sustainable development of agriculture. Less importance has been, in turn, attached to the political sciences. The role of life and agricultural sciences (agronomy, zootechnics, veterinary medicine, agricultural chemistry) was rated more highly by representatives of the life sciences. The idea of sustainable development is still evolving concept, which is indirectly indicated by the opinions about increasing need for further engaging all scientific fields that were analyzed. Experts claim that in the future the role of sociology and rural sociology in implementing concepts will increase most significantly, which may indicate that a better understanding of social order will be required.