Agricultural Land Fragmentation and Land Consolidation Rationality

Adopted about one year after the 1989 Revolution, Land Law (Law 18/1991) represented the starting point of land reform in Romania. As a result of this law implementation, at the beginning of the year 2000 the private sector owned 84% of total agricultural land: 82% of arable land, 74% of land under vineyards, 67% of land under orchards and 87% of land under meadows and pastures. Besides the benefic social and economic effects, the mutations produced represent a distortion source in the rural area, determining the following, among others: a) crisis of ownership relations - a main aspect of this being the confusion concerning the ownership rights. The prolongation of clearing up these rights represents a major obstacle to a good operation of land market, to agricultural land consolidation implicitly; b) managerial crisis, manifested by the lack of competitive behaviour, which gives an increased importance to the production function, to the detriment of commercial function; this results in the increased share of small-sized subsistence farms (households), lack of strategic orientations, etc; c) land market crisis - occurred in the context of the lack of legal and institutional framework concerning the land market operation (credits in advantageous conditions for buying land through the banking system or by establishing specialised banks, solving up the problems in connection to using land as collateral for obtaining credits, mortgage credit stimulation); d) crisis of agricultural economic efficiency - mainly generated by land property excessive fragmentation, large area (about 55%) owned by old persons or by persons not having their domicile in the rural area, lack of main production factors combination, limited circulation of land capital, lack of an adequate legal and institutional framework, etc. An analysis of the concrete, social and economic situation of land fragmentation and of agricultural land consolidation opportunity was conducted in the commune Balaciu; this commune is located in the plain area, with a population of 3540 inhabitants and a total area of 8462 ha. In order to identify the rural social actors which can favour land consolidation by their structure, behaviour and functionality, the following typology of rural households has been used as methodology: agricultural households (consisting of persons working only in agriculture); pluriactive households (consisting of persons involved in both agricultural and non-agricultural activities); non-active households (consisting of non-active persons); non-agricultural households (only persons working in other non-agricultural activities). The survey revealed that the main entities which can become the social actors of rural/agricultural modernisation, of land consolidation implicitly are the pluriactive and non-agricultural households. In order to consolidate the agricultural land, there is an obvious and imperative need to conceive a well articulated and coherent framework of support measures, understood and treated as a complex of economic, social, legal and technical measures, aiming at rural community development.Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Agricultural Policy Influence Upon the Economic Behaviour of Rural Households

The deep transformations brought about by the progressive and steady commitment of Romanian economy to the market economy have determined, among others, the modification of the role and status of rural household in the economic activity. Rural household changed from a simple participant, constrained to act in a certain way under a centralised, equalising and levelling system during the communist period, to a participant that carries out its activity in a competing environment in which initiative, creativity and efficiency are defining elements. Based on field surveys conducted at national level, the present paper intends to identify the evolution of economic behaviours specific to rural households under the influence of agricultural policy measures in the period 1997-2000. The conclusions of this study reveal that in this period, most of rural households operated under a subsistence system, according to an economic rationality in which market economy mechanism are lacking. However, the economic picture is far from being a homogeneous one: the emergence of a nucleus of agricultural entrepreneurs, i.e. those who assume the risk of shifting from subsistence to competitive agriculture, those who are trying to turn the peasant household into a farm managed on the capitalist principles, has induced new economic behaviours in the rural communities.rural household, economic behaviour, agricultural policy, Romania, Consumer/Household Economics,

Social and economic dimensions of land reform - a territorial aproach

Agricultural land represents one of the most valuable natural resources of a country, being both a significant form of national wealth, and an important source of economic and political power. The land reform has been a constant presence in the policy promoted by the governments leading Romania after the year 1990. By its amplitude and importance this represented a study issue treated and debated in many scientific works. Though, there is in Romania, a more reduced concern as regards the territorial dimensions linked to the land reform. The goal of the present paper is to bring a contribution in this field. The analysis was concentrated on the following main dimensions: the ownership structure of the agricultural land fund, the farms’ structure and the land market’s features. Within the context of the bigger and bigger importance given to de-centralization, the territorial approach could contribute efficiently to the supporting of the sustainable rural development

Social and economic dimensions of land reform - a territorial aproach

Agricultural land represents one of the most valuable natural resources of a country, being both a significant form of national wealth, and an important source of economic and political power. The land reform has been a constant presence in the policy promoted by the governments leading Romania after the year 1990. By its amplitude and importance this represented a study issue treated and debated in many scientific works. Though, there is in Romania, a more reduced concern as regards the territorial dimensions linked to the land reform. The goal of the present paper is to bring a contribution in this field. The analysis was concentrated on the following main dimensions: the ownership structure of the agricultural land fund, the farms’ structure and the land market’s features. Within the context of the bigger and bigger importance given to de-centralization, the territorial approach could contribute efficiently to the supporting of the sustainable rural development

Ecological agriculture and biodiversity -relationships, congruences, objective conditions and perceptions of local actors

Ecological agriculture provides a favourable framework for maintaining biodiversity by using economically and socially efficient friendly farming practices, generating modern attributes to rural communities and offering a different lifestyle and a different quality of life to the entire society. In two counties ranking in the top ten counties with areas cultivated under organic farming system, Cluj and Suceava, there are positive implications of these farming practices on biological diversity. Qualitative research methods were used to see the local/rural actors’ opinion on this topic: hybrid forum and in-depth-interviews. Farmers’ decisions to adopt sustainable practices for the environment, which provide positive externalities for biodiversity, water, soil and landscapes, are generated by business-specific economic and social rationality tending to achieve profit specific objectives by using traditional knowledge and skills from the intangible rural heritage

STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF METODS OF SOIL TILLAGE ON PEA YIELD, IN CLIMATIC CONDITIONS AT THE A.R.D.S. VALUL LUI TRAIAN

The experimental plan consists of establishing methods and technologies for theprotection and improvement of the agricultural productive potential of soil and water resources, climate and implementing performance-enhancing technologies for cultivating plants with increased efficiency in the use of water and nutritional elements and it is addressed to local farmers

How are ecological approaches justified in European rural development policy? Evidence from a content analysis of CAP and rural development discourses

Ecological approaches to farming are gaining increasing interest in the EU's Rural Development (RD) policy. From a societal perspective, these approaches are expected to deliver public goods in terms of environmental and social benefits for both consumers and rural actors. This study aims to investigate the policy discourses that are being used in the Rural Development Programmes (RDPs) of Sweden, France, Bavaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania to depict and justify the support for ecological approaches across three programming periods of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). For this purpose, a model integrating both CAP and RD discourses was developed and applied using deductive content analysis focused on the policy documents of RDPs. The results suggest that during the entire CAP period from 2000 to 2020, ecological approaches were mainly justified in a multifunctionality discourse, especially with the two RD discourses of i) nature conservation in all considered EU member states and regions, with the exception of Sweden, and ii) agri-ruralism, including Sweden. The neomercantilist discourse appears to be the third most dominant discourse in the two most recent CAP periods from 2007 to 2013 and 2014–2020, becoming more prominent between these two periods. Ecological approaches are almost never advocated along liberal lines as the neo-liberalist discourse is almost absent. These results highlight that these six EU member states and regions recognize the potential of these approaches for delivering public goods, despite a lesser emphasis on socio-economic benefit

Legislation and political discourse about ecological farming

The deliverable D6.1 of the LIFT project explores what types of discourses are used in six European Union (EU) member states’ Rural Development Programs (RDP) and other agricultural policy documents and how they incorporate ecological approaches acrossthree Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) periods. This multiple case study highlights similarities and differences in the dominant discourses as emerging from national policy documents in the following selected EU member states: France, Germany (Bavaria), Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. It also demonstrates how discourse analysis can be used to gain understanding about the dominant discourses expressed in these documents in relation to how ecological approaches are defined, the policy rationale for encouraging ecological approaches and the expected consequences of doing so. Conceptually, we focused on two types of discourses identified from the literature: 1) the three CAP discourses: i) neomercantilism; ii) neoliberalism and iii) multifunctionality, and 2) the five socio-political discourses of Rural Development (RD): iv) agri-ruralist, v) hedonist, vi) utilitarian, vii) nature conservation and viii) community sustainability. These types of discourses were together integrated in a model, where each policy discourse depicts agriculture as accomplishing a specific function. The theoretical framework is grounded within a political economy perspective. This means that policy develops because of confrontation between different concerned agents with different interest, pushing for different objectives. The state acts as an intermediary between these agents and aims at ensuring consensus and maintenance of agreement. Policy documents are therefore often the result of competing discourses and contradicting policy objectives. Across EU member states, the results show that ecological approaches are mainly depicted with the multifunctionality discourse with two dominating sub-discourses of nature conservation and agri-ruralism. Nevertheless, we observe an increase in the use of the neomercantilist discourse in the last CAP period. This parallels what the previous literature finds in Commissioners’ speeches: a reappearance of the traditional neomercantilist discourse in the CAP agenda 2014-2020. Farming systems (with farming practices) related to agroecology, biodiversity-based and organic farming are among the most commonly mentioned farming systems