Problems in managing agricultural land in Lithuania

Abstract

The article presents analysis of situation with agricultural land in Lithuania and need for its further arrangement after the main land privatization activities are completed. Based on land management projects of the land reform, over 3 mil. ha of agricultural land parcels were formed and legitimized as private ownership. Parcels of such land are actively transferred to new owners, get subdivided, partitioned or otherwise reshaped. Due to the land management activities that involve changing of prime land use, agriculture loses-2 thous. ha of land used for fanning each year. Article gives suggestions on how the legal acts must facilitate rational forming of land tenures for farms, straiten decomposition and diminishing of arable land plots, and protect productive agricultural areas from their self-afforestation or from turning them into residential areas. Land management issues also involve regulation of rational land use. m 2005, about 650 thous. ha of agricultural land in Lithuania was not used for agricultural production, and part of land for meadows, pastures and perennial grass was used extensively. Article presents proposals for applying such juridical, economical anJ organizational measures which would encourage landowners of not cultivated land to transfer this land or lease it to agricultural entities and to comply with the recommendations set it area planning documents.