EN
Due to the specific problems of rural areas, the policy of stimulating entrepreneurship located in the countryside is becoming ever more important. The shaping of entrepreneurial attitudes and the introduction of assistance programmes for the already existing enterprises constitute the main factors of the development of entrepreneurship. Its understanding should not be confined to non-agricultural activities alone for it encompasses the modernisation of farms and the adoption by farmers of behaviour patterns which are typical for business activity. The system of incentives created by the pre-accession programme of assistance to agriculture and rural areas SAPARD fits this conceptual framework. An independent empirical research study was carried out to investigate the impact of this programme on the development of rural entrepreneurship. The last part of the paper deals with quantitative and qualitative changes in respect of stimulation of the development of rural entrepreneurship that have taken place in Poland after its accession to the European Union.