Rural Land Management and Agricultural Restructuring in Transitional Economies - The Case for Developing a Land Tenure Framework

摘要

Land reform is an important part of the transition to market economics in former communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The reform demands solutions to new problems created by the transfer of land and trading assets from the state to the private sector in the absence of an established land tenure framework. This paper outlines principles of land tenure, which are keys to the introduction of rational land management practices on newly "privatised" landholdings. These practices are common in the West and recognise that in market economies the factors of production, in particular land are re-allocated through transactions between citizens, in which the state plays no direct part. The approach to rural land management suggested recognises the historical context in which reforms in former communist countries are taking place and the associated legal, economic, social and practical issues that face those who have a stake in the reform process.