MACIEJ KARCZEWSKI loves his job as an apple farmer in Lower Silesia, near Wroclaw. On a sunny spring day he is out in his orchard of 40 hectares (100 acres), proudly showing off row after row of blossoming apple trees, separated by dandelion-dotted grass.Mr Karczewski’s father started growing apples 25 years ago. The son trained in nurseries in Britain and studied horticulture at the University of Minnesota but always knew he was going to return to his family’s fruit trees. The farm employs five people all year long, ten in the pruning seasons and 30 for the harvest. For the peak harvest season in September and October Mr Karczewski hires Ukrainians, as local labour is expensive and hard to find.Apples are one of Poland’s most successful exports. Last year the country overtook China as the world’s biggest apple exporter. One-third of Poland’s crop, or about 1.2m tonnes, went abroad, with Russia taking 57% of the total. Poland’s entire farm sector, from cereals to meat production, is surging ahead. Last year agri-food exports were worth 85 billion zloty ($27 billion), an 11.5% increase on 2012....
from The Economist: Special report http://ift.tt/1lhaSAM
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