Government’s Interference in the land strengthening process can be understood under certain conditions. IPN Economic Analysis

The periodical interventions of the Government in the process of structural adjusting of the land market through its policies, as strengthening, launched officially several days ago, can be understood, the economic analyst Viorel Chstruga declared for Info-Prim Neo. Usually, in the majority of countries, organization of agriculture is due to policies promoted by the state. As well in the present pitiable situation of Moldova in Agriculture it is a result of state policies. The analyst considers that the national system of economical organization in agriculture is at an incipient stage. When analyzing the metamorphosis of the agricultural fields’ structure depending on property type or organizational-juridical form it is possible to conclude that a complex, but incoherent national system that is constituted out of many forms of economic organization is standing out. Now Moldova has everything: individual farms, Joint Stock Companies, Limited Liability Companies, state farms etc. But there is no viable model of economic organization, capable to be considered a center of attraction for different agricultural entities which activate in the rural environment this being one of the reasons why Moldova has no notable agriculture. It is a logical and typical situation for Moldova due to the particularities of the land reform and the result of the already implemented agricultural reform. As a consequence the soviet type of agriculture was demolished and more that one million persons became land owners. According to Viorel Chivriga, the deficiencies of the agricultural reform generated many problems for the new agricultural entities, which substituted partly the kolkhoz and the state enterprises. The small size of the plots cultivated by the individual farms and by other categories of land owners (on January 1, 2005, about 500 thousand land owners administrated 682480 hectares of agricultural lands), fragmentation and dispersal of the agricultural lands owned by these entities, the restricted commercial character of the agricultural products sold by these categories of owners, determines until present days a stoppage in their development. On the other hand, the big enterprises, as well, do not show special successes in agriculture. In these conditions, the state has the right and the obligation to interfere only if it takes upon itself all the responsibilities. The analyst states that during the last three years several initiatives that were aiming to optimize agricultural fields, inclusively draft laws, strategies implemented on national level, as SCERS, the resolution adopted by the participants to the National Conference “Strengthening Lands – first step for increasing investments in agriculture!”, organized in Chisinau by the Ministry of Agriculture and Alimentary Industry in partnership with the Land Privatization Support Project(LPSP) financed by USAID etc were launched. All these initiatives and actions, although criticized from time to time, generated positive effects, as starting public discussions on optimizing the agricultural lands. Namely the public debates influenced to a great extent the state policies on structural adjusting of landed market that were corrected and improved on the fly. In this way avoiding many mistakes which could have had a similar impact over farmers as in the case of lands’ privatization process was possible. In the strengthening strategy of the agricultural fields, approved recently by the Government is mentioned that “by overcoming successfully the privatization stage of agricultural lands, implementing the mechanisms of the land market, creating the necessary legal framework and the needed institutions to protect the ownership rights over land, Moldova is ready to pass to the second stage of the land reform. The strengthening program will be implemented following three stages. The first stage will include implementing pilot-projects, according to the legislation in force. The second stage will include elaborating the legal framework, informing the population, creating coordinating commissions on local level. The third stage will include creating technical-material and favorable financial conditions for the strengthening of the lands on the whole territory of Moldova. The Government announces its decision that through this strengthening program, to remove the mistakes made during the privatization of over 1.6 million hectares of agricultural lands and to implement a social concept that will be finished up after the end of the first stage of the mentioned-above program. In order to accomplish these objectives and not making serious mistakes, Viorel Chistruga considers that, it would be correct that these actions comply with the new European agricultural concept, that mentions about the complex economic development of the rural regions, which means supporting all economic forms of organization in agriculture and offering special facilities to the small agricultural entities from marginal regions. As well it is the proper time to correlate this program with obligatory measures on creating a third area in the rural environment, which could accommodate a significant part of the farmers who will halt their agricultural activities.