Ownership Changes of Agricultural Land in Selected Countries of Central Europe
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53098/wir.2017.1.174/01Keywords:
Central Europe, agriculture, fragmentation, land use, privatization, ownership changesAbstract
The aim of the study is to evaluate selected changes in agricultural land use under the privatization processes in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary. The study focuses on the phenomenon of fragmentation of ownership and farming of agricultural land. The analyzed countries have adopted a similar concept of privatization and restitution of land but the effects of these processes were varied. The most prominent result of ownership changes was a dynamic growth in the number of individual farms. This process was especially intensive in Hungary and Romania. For several years a decrease in the farm number and a growing importance of large companies has been observed in those countries. On the other hand, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, despite the privatization of land it remains in the management of large corporate groups and production companies. Large farms play a dominant role in all of the surveyed countries. In the Czech Republic, Slovakia and partly in Hungary smallholders lease farming land to large production corporations, so that fragmentation of ownership has not resulted in the fragmentation of land use. However, Romania has experienced ownership fragmentation at very high degree, which lowered the efficiency and competitiveness of the agricultural sector.References
Balteanu D., Popovici E. (2010). Land use changes and land degradation in post-socialist Romania. Romanian Journal of Geography, 54 (2), 95–105.
Bandlerova A., Marisova E. (2003). Importance of ownership and lease of agricultural land in Slovakia in the pre-accession period. Agricultural Economics, 49 (5), 213–216.
Bański J. (2011). Changes in agricultural land ownership in Poland in the period of the market economy. Agricultural Economics, 57 (2), 93–101.
Bański J. (2014). Structure and ownership of agricultural land in Poland in the first years of new millennium. Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology B, 4, 85–93.
Benedek J. (2000). Land reform in Romania after 1989: Towards market oriented agriculture? W: Tillack P., Schulze E. (red.), Land Ownership, Land Markets and Their Influence on the Efficiency of Agricultural Production in Central and Eastern Europe (s. 423–434). Halle–Saale: IAMO.
Bicik I., Jelecek L. (2009). Land use and landscape changes in Chechia during the period of transition 1990–2007. Geografie, 114 (4), 263–281.
Brouwer F., Thomas J., Chadwick M. (1991). Land Use Change in Europe: Processes of Change, Environmental Transformations and Future Patterns. Stockholm Environment Institute: Springer Sciences + Business Media.
Dijk van T. (2003). Scenarios of Central European land fragmentation. Land Use Policy, 20, 149–158.
Doucha T., Divila E., Fischer M. (2005). Land use and ownership and the Czech farm development. W: Floriańczyk Z., Czapiewski K. (red.), Rural Development Capacity in Carpathian Europe (s. 139–151). Warszawa: Institute of Agricultural and Food Economics, Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization, Polish Academy of Sciences (seria: Rural Areas and Development, t. 3).
Giovarelli R., Bledsoe D. (2001). Land Reform in Eastern Europe. FAO.
Hartsa I., Kovach I., Szelenyi I. (1998). The price of privatization. The post-communist transformational crisis of the Hungarian agrarian system. W: Szelenyi I. (red.), Privatising the Land. Rural Political Economy in Post-Communist Societies (s. 21–42). London: Routledge.
Hartvigsen M. (2013). Land reform in Central and Eastern Europe after 1989 and its outcome in the form of farm structures and land fragmentation. Land Tenure Working Paper, 24, FAO.
Hartvigsen M. (2014). Land mobility in a Central and Eastern European land consolidation context. Nordic Journal of Surveying and Real Estate Research, 10 (1), 23–46.
Ihlanfeldt K.R. (2007). The effect of land use regulation on housing and land prices. Journal of Urban Economics, 61, 420–435.
Iordach C., Bauerkamper A. (red.) (2011). The Collectivization of Agriculture in Communist Eastern Europe. Budapest: Central European University Press.
Janku J., Sekac P., Barakova J., Kozak J. (2016). Land use analysis in terms of farmland protection in the Czech Republic. Soil and Water Resources, 11 (1), 20–28.
King R., Burton S. (1982). Land fragmentation: Notes on a fundamental rural spatial problem. Progress in Human Geography, 6 (4), 475–494.
Kovacs T. (2005). Restructuring agriculture. W: Barta G., Fekete E., Szorenyine I., Timar J. (red.), Hungarian Space and Places: Patterns of Transition (s. 259–271). Pecs: Centre for Regional Studies.
Land concentration, land grabbing and people’s struggles in Europe (2013). Transnational Institute (TNI) for European Coordination Via Campesina and Hands off the Land network, FIAN.
Popovici E., Balteanu D., Kucsicsa G. (2013) Assessment of changes in land-use and land-cover pattern in Romania using Corine Land Cover database. Carpathian Journal of Earth and Environmental Sciences, 8 (4), 195–208.
Popp J., Stauder M. (2003). Land market in Hungary. Agricultural Economics, 49 (4), 173–178.
Sadowski A., Takacs-György K. (2005). Results of agricultural reform: Land use and land reform in Poland and Hungary. Studies in Agricultural Economics, 103, 53–70.
Strelecek F., Jelinek L., Lososova J., Zdenek R. (2011). Relationship between the land rent and agricultural land prices in the Czech Republic. Statistica, 48 (2), 49–59.
Swain N. (1985). Collective Farms Which Work. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swinnen J., Mathijs E. (1997). Agricultural privatisation, land reform and farm restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe: A comparative analysis. W: Swinnen J. i in. (red.), Agricultural Privatisation, Land Reform and Farm Restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe (s. 333–373). Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Toth-Naar Z., Molnar M., Vinogradov S. (2014). Impact of land use changes on land value in Hungary. Roczniki Naukowe, Stowarzyszenie Ekonomistów Rolnictwa i Agrobiznesu, 16 (6), 500–504.
Turnock D. (1989). Eastern Europe: An Economic and Political Geography. London: Routledge.
Zadura A. (2005). Zarządzanie gruntami rolnymi w krajach Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej, Ekonomiczne i społeczne uwarunkowania rozwoju polskiej gospodarki żywnościowej po wstąpieniu Polski do Unii Europejskiej, 6, Program wieloletni 2005–2009. Warszawa: Instytut Ekonomiki Rolnictwa i Gospodarki Żywnościowej PIB.
Zadura A. (2009). Transformacja ustrojowa rolnictwa w krajach Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej. Roczniki Nauk Rolniczych, Seria G, 96 (4), 248–255.
Zgliński W. (2003). Skutki transformacji Państwowych Gospodarstw Rolnych w ujęciu przestrzennym. W: Stasiak A. (red.), Przemiany zagospodarowania terenów wiejskich w Polsce (s. 151–192). Biuletyn KPZK PAN, 207.
Downloads
Article file downloads
Pages
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Wieś i Rolnictwo
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.