Agriculture in Poland has always been an important part of the country's economy. Of the 18,727,000 hectares of agricultural land (about 60 percent of Poland's total area), 14,413,000 hectares were used for crop cultivation, 265,000 for orchards, and about 4,048,500 for meadows and pastures in 1989. In most areas, soil and climatic conditions favored a mixed type of farming.