Government formulates farmland bill

The government on Wednesday adopted a farmland bill which should stimulate greater utilisation of farmland and the process of merging commercial farms, introduce greater discipline in re-purposing farmland and improve management and transparency of availability of farmland.
 

Agriculture Minister Tihomir Jakovina warned of the inefficiency of the current law and that over the past 10 years only 262,000 hectares of the 890,000 hectares of arable land has been put to use which is less than 30%. This has given way to forest and brush growing on what is exceptionally pure farming land.
Over the past 50 years Croatia has reduced its arable land from 2.6 million hectares to 1.3 million hectares, 70% of which is privately owned and 30% government land.
Apart from that, the average for commercial farms in European Union (EU) countries is 14 hectares per farm whereas in Croatia that average is 5.6 hectares which puts it at the bottom of the scale. The small size of farms makes it difficult to introduce modern technology, Minister Jakovina said.
The new model for giving concessions on state-owned farmland will be more transparent and this will be within the remit of the farmland agency.
PM Zoran Milanovic pointed out that this did not mean centralisation but that the state was taking over responsibility for a strategic resource which land was.
We do not intend to sell off our resources such as farmland which will fall under a special regime for the first seven years after Croatia joins the EU with the possibility of extending that for an additional three years, he said.
He underscored that the government's policy was clear on this matter: to ensure consolidation, greater productivity and transparency when referring to farmland and strategic investments.
(Hina)

 

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