The Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute is an independent scientific and research centre with 70 years of scientific achievement and experience in analysing economic and production processes in the Polish agriculture and food economy. It was established in 1950 as the Agricultural Economics Institute. In 1983 it merged with the Food Industry Economics and Organisation Institute and since then it has operated under the name of the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics. By way of the Decision of the Council of Ministers, dated October 2004, it obtained the status of the state research institute and since 1 January 2005 it has operated as the Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics - National Research Institute (IAFE-NRI). The scientific staff of the Institute comprises 8 professors, 13 assistant professors (PhD hab.), 22 doctors (PhD), 22 assistants and 2 technical research specialists, employed in 6 scientific departments:

Department of Agribusiness and Bioeconomy;
Department of Economics of Agricultural and Horticultural Holdings;
Department of Agricultural Economy, Agricultural Policy and Rural Development;
Department of Agricultural Markets and Quantitative Methods;
Department of Finance and Risk Management;
Department of Agricultural Holdings Accountancy.

Research is being held under the statutory activity and the following multi-annual programmes:

• in 2005-2009 Multi-Annual Programme: “Economic and Social Factors Conditioning Polish Food Economy Development after Poland EU Accession”,
  
  
• in 2011-2014 Multi-Annual Programme: “Competitiveness of the Polish food economy in the conditions of globalization and European integration”,
  
  
• in 2015-2019 Multi-Annual Programme: “The Polish and the EU agricultures 2020+. Challenges, chances, threats, proposals”.

The third major direction of the Institute activity is collecting agricultural accountancy results. Since May 2004 the Institute has acted as the FADN Liaison Agency, which entails collecting farm accountancy data within the European system. FADN (Farm Accountancy Data Network) is a tool that facilitates the programming and implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy in 27 EU Member States. The Liaison Agency is responsible for providing accountancy data from a representative sample of farms, to FADN, to national decision-making, advisory as well as scientific and research centres, and to farmers, in the form of individual and comparison reports.

The collections of original and unique empirical data, gathered for many years through field studies, has a prominent place within the scientific output of the Institute. The Agricultural Holdings Accountancy Department has gathered information on the economic and production results achieved by farms as part of the Agricultural Accountancy System, and since 2004 as part of the Polish FADN. Also the survey of production and social situation of family farms and rural families was conducted every 4-5 years in 76 Polish villages (covering ca. 0.2% of rural families in Poland). The IAFE-NRI further collects the CSO data concerning the economic and financial situation in the food industry, production and food prices, as well as the CIHZ (i.e. the Foreign Trade Information Centre) data on the situation in foreign trade with agricultural and food products. This data forms the basis of many master's, doctor's and habilitation theses that are developed at universities countrywide.

The research results of IAFE-NRI are used in creating the state agricultural and rural policies. Various expert opinions concerning the situation in food economy and rural areas are issued at the request of the major state administration bodies (including the Sejm, the Senate, the Council of Ministers, the President's Office, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Finance and the Supreme Audit Office), government bodies (including the Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture), courts and statistical offices, as well as enterprises, companies and associations of producers and manufacturers. Research and expert studies are published by the Institute's publishing houses, in the following series: Communications, Reports, Expert Studies, Studies and Monographs, and Market Analyses, as well as by other research centres and in such magazines as Ekonomista (English: The Economist), Problems of Agricultural Economics/Zagadnienia Ekonomiki Rolnej and Wieś i Rolnictwo (English: Village and Agriculture). Reports on the Multiannual Programme are available free of charge at the Institute website: www.ierigz.waw.pl. The scientific studies of IAFE-NRI are read by over 380 institutions in the country.

The IAFE-NRI staff develops and continually improves its research methods, collaborating with a number of scientific centres, both in the country and abroad, and participating in various international research programmes.

IAFE-NRI is an institution open to cooperation with all scientific and economic circles, both in the country and abroad. The experience and scientific output of the Institute is the paragon of high quality work and cooperation.