Biogas energy - a chance for agriculture and rural development? Insight from the post-communist Central Europe

Biogas production has recently expanded across the post-communist Central European countries. This paper addresses the role of biogas plants based on agricultural resources (agri-food waste and agricultural crops) as a new factor of rural development in Poland and Slovakia, and so it contributes to the comprehensive research on effects of agricultural biogas energy production. The analysis is based on a set of quantitative and qualitative methods, and the results are thoroughly illustrated by two case studies of agricultural biogas plants representing specific features and circumstances of biogas plants in both countries. The results reveal mutual conditionality between operating plants and agricultural structures. The study also provides insight into the impact of agricultural biogas plants operation to the rural development including stabilization of agricultural production thanks to improvement of its multifunctionality and points to the differences between two kinds of biogas plants regarding their ownership and national legal specifics.