Changes in agricultural land ownership in Poland in the period of the market economy

Abstract

Abstract:The article concentrates on the changes of ownership ongoing in Polish agriculture in the period 1989-2004. Since Polish agriculture was above all private in nature throughout the period of communism, the changes in question were actually more limited than in other central and East European countries (cEEc). Those that have taken place have first and foremost involved the privatisation of the old State Farms, whose assets were taken over by individually-owned farms or commercial-law companies, with the intermediation of the Treasury Agricultural Property Agency established for the purpose. A major element of the assets undergoing privatisation was agricultural land. The size of the ownership change has varied from region to region. in the West and north, where more than half of all farmland was in the State Farm hands to 1989, there was a marked increase in the share of land under private ownership. on the other hand, in central and Eastern Poland, the changes were very limited, concerning only the transfer of land between private farms. important reasons accounting for the limited activity on the market for land in this part of Poland include the agrarian overpopulation and the widespread treatment of land as a form of the "insurance policy" against job losses. The ownership changes have further encouraged polarisation where farm size structure is concerned. Farms increased in size in the regions where the large average area has long been a typical feature. in turn, the areas characterised by the excessive agrarian fragmentation have not seen any more major changes in the size structure over the recent period. A detailed analysis of the changes in ownership over the market economy period is preceded by a discussion of the history of land ownership in Polish agriculture, with a particular emphasis being placed on the communist era. The legal and social bases conditioning ownership change are also discussed.Key words: land ownership, land use, agriculture, land fragmentation, transformation, central and Eastern Europe, Poland Abstrakt: Článek se zaměřuje na změny vlastnické struktury půdy probíhající v polském zemědělství v letech 1989-2004. Polské zemědělství bylo v průběhu celého období komunismu převážně soukromé, uvedené změny byly fakticky méně významné než v ostatních zemích střední a východní Evropy (cEEc). Ty, jež se v Polsku uskutečnily, se týkaly primárně a převážně privatizace původních státních statků, jejichž majetek převzaly podniky fyzických osob nebo obchodní společ-nosti za spoluúčasti agentury Fondu zemědělského majetku, jež byla pro tento účel zřízena. hlavním prvkem probíhající privatizace byla privatizace zemědělské půdy. rozsah vlastnických změn se lišil mezi jednotlivými regiony. na západě a na severu Polska, kde více než polovina zemědělského půdního fondu byla do roku 1989 ve vlastnictví státních statků, se projevil významný nárůst půdy v soukromém vlastnictví. na druhé straně ve středním a jižním Polsku byly vlastnické změny velmi omezené a týkaly se většinou pouze transferů mez...

Factors affecting the price of agricultural land in Slovakia

“…the size of the plot offered for the sale), coefficient of proportion of the offered plot area, type of parcel in register, type of soil, administrative price of the plot offered, distance of the offered plot from a district city, distance of the offered plot from a regional seat, type of tourism region and, finally, region in which the offered plot is located (Table 1). The verification of the presumption that the supply price of agricultural land is affected particularly by the location of agricultural land (Deaton and Norris, 2001;Hopfer and Żuk, 2002;Pavličková and Spišiak, 2007;Tan, 2008;Bański, 2011;Buday, 2011;Marks-Bielska, 2013) was confirmed by two econometric models. The independent variable determining the location of the agricultural land plot was represented by the typology of regions based on the regionalisation of tourism regions (see Equation 1) …”

“…Many authors have tried to map these factors and to quantify the strength of their impact on the price formation. Deaton and Norris (2001), as well as Bański (2011), state that the price of agricultural land depends primarily on the quality, size and location of agricultural land. Another factor added by Buday (2011) is the purpose of the use of agricultural land.…”

“…Based on their research, any authors (Tanner, 1968;Gardner and Nuckton, 1979;Deaton and Norris, 2001;Buday and Bradáčová, 2007;Tan, 2008;Bański, 2011;Sklenička et al, 2013;Grausová et al, 2014;Kurowska and Kryszk, 2015) found out that the price of agricultural land is affected by many factors. The creation of the econometric model enables the identification of factors influencing the price of agricultural land in Slovakia.…”

Untitled

“…These areas can be mostly found in the eastern part of the country. In these areas small-scale family farming persisted during the socialist era (Bański 2011). The relatively low unemployment of these regions indicates that many former industrial workers returned to subsistence farming.…”

Factors affecting farm size on the European level and the national level of the Czech Republic

“…The Central European countries mainly suffer from two types, the ownership fragmentation and the separation of ownership from the land use (van Dijk 2003;Sklenička et al 2014). Prior to the land consolidation, the owners frequently cannot efficiently farm their plots which are "locked" inside large blocks of land (Bański 2011;Sklenička et al 2014), and they are, therefore, compelled to rent their lands to the established agricultural entities. This frequently results in extremely large blocks of land (van Dijk 2003;Demetriou et al 2013) which are economically efficient but also contribute to the degradation of agricultural ecosystems (Popescu doi: 10.17221/317/2015-AGRICECON 2010Sklenička et al 2014).…”