Ownership Changes of Agricultural Land in Selected Countries of Central Europe

Bański, Jerzy

doi:doi:10.53098/wir012017/01

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Title: Ownership Changes of Agricultural Land in Selected Countries of Central Europe

Abstract:

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.

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