Land Tenure and Rural Development - Case of Slovakia

摘要

The structure of ownership of agricultural land, despite of the developing market with agricultural land in recent years, has not changed considerably. Most of agricultural land in Slovakia is, even after 6 years from the entry of Slovakia into the EU, leased. According to the Structural census of farms (2001), the lease of agricultural land represents 96%, in 2010 it was 91% (EUROSTAT, 2010). The research results obtained by Research Institute of Agriculture and Food Economics (RIAFE) indicate that from the total area of agricultural land used by the reference set of 6 regions for the period of 2001 - 2009 only 3.06% were owned by either individuals or legal persons who managed the agricultural land, and up to 96.94% consisted of the leased land. Similar results have been confirmed by the research obtained by Department of Law of SUA. As much as 75% of agricultural land is owned by private individuals, 5% is state-owned and 20% is still unidentified. It means that 25% of agricultural land which is managed by Slovak Land Fund remains under state control. This fact affects the market of agricultural land as well as the amount of the rent paid. There are still problems such as: high percentage of agricultural land under state management, fragmentation of agricultural land, unfinished landscaping, problems with determination of prices of agricultural land, different regional policies for tax collecting regarding agricultural land, limited possibility of acquiring agricultural land by foreigners. It is undisputed that the property rights to agricultural land and changes in its ownership and lease have an impact on rural development.