The paper presents an institutional framework for implementing agricultural and rural support policy in Poland and evaluates Government executive agencies through a general review of their performance and a case study of two EU paying agencies: the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture and the Agricultural Market Agency.

The survey across Poland was conducted in 2006–2007 on a total of 200 respondents. The Likert scale questionnaires were used to obtain data regarding selected attributes of the agencies’ governance and performance.

The results of the survey indicate that in farmers’ perception (i) both agencies generally do not differ in the quality of provided services from other governmental offices; (ii) their overall performance was on average positively evaluated by farmers; (iii) farmers generally have confidence in the agencies; (iv) the agencies are perceived as contributing to the European integration; (v) they are resistant to pressure from political parties and interest groups and represent mainly Polish farmers’ interests; (vi) they spend public money quite efficiently. Additionally, no important differences in the evaluations made by small and big farmers were found.

Keywords: governance, agricultural agencies, policy implementation, Poland