Poland, one of the candidate countries for European Union membership, is currently experiencing acute structural problems within its agriculture sector. This article analyses technical efficiency and its determinants for a panel of individual farms in Poland specialized in crop and livestock production in 2000. Technical efficiency is estimated with stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and confidence intervals are constructed. Determinants of inefficiency are also evaluated. The SFA results are compared with results using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). On average, livestock farms are more technically efficient than crop farms. For both specializations, the size–efficiency relationship is positive, that is large farms are more efficient. The SFA findings are generally supported by the DEA results. Soil quality and the degree of integration with downstream markets are highly important determinants of efficiency. The use of factor markets (land and labour) is important for crop farms, while livestock farms can rely on family labour and own land. Also, education is a constraint to efficiency particularly for crop farms.

Summary: An increasing variety of stresses and shocks provides challenges and opportunities for EU farming systems. This article presents findings of a participatory assessment on the sustainability and resilience of eleven EU farming systems, to inform the design of adequate and relevant strategies and policies. According to stakeholders that participated in workshops, the main functions of farming systems are related to food production, economic viability and maintenance of natural resources. Performance of farming systems assessed with regard to these and five other functions was perceived to be moderate. Past strategies were often geared towards making the system more profitable, and to a lesser extent towards coupling production with local and natural resources, social self‐organisation, enhancing functional diversity, and facilitating infrastructure for innovation. Overall, the resilience of the studied farming systems was perceived as low to moderate, with robustness and adaptability often dominant over transformability. To allow for transformability, being reasonably profitable and having access to infrastructure for innovation were viewed as essential. To improve sustainability and resilience of EU farming systems, responses to short‐term processes should better consider long‐term processes. Technological innovation is required, but it should be accompanied with structural, social, agro‐ecological and institutional changes.