The paper provides descriptive analyses of the EU New Member States agriculture over the period from 2000 to 2011. In 2004 and 2007, twelve New Member States (NMS) joined the European Union, which has offered several possibilities and challenges to the newcomers. The aim of the paper is to discuss development of agriculture in the EU New Member States. We evaluate the status of this sector as well as identify factors lying behind the NMS performances. The EU accession has had an overall positive impact on the NMS agriculture, although the NMS capitalised their possibilities in a different manner, due to initial conditions and pre- and post-accession policies.