The state must simplify the procedures and the costs of the land transactions. IPN analysis

The state must simplify as fast as possible the procedures and the cost of the land transactions, if it really wants to implement the Governmental Strategy on agricultural land strengthening, the secretary of the Union of agricultural producers associations “Uniagroprotect”, Alexandru Slusari declared. According to him, the Strategy, recently made public, includes simplifying the procedures, but the specialized ministry has to make efforts to implement them, by elaborating amendments to the legislation. Slusari affirms that at present there are important problems related to high notary and survey taxes, numerous necessary acts for certifying the contracts and the survey documents, lack of notary offices in villages, fact that makes difficult the strengthening process of agricultural lands through purchase-sell of the lands, through rent and exchange. The quoted source mentioned that the state already made some steps towards diminishing the tariffs at survey registration of the agricultural lplots after sell-purchase and works on decreasing the notary taxes, but the procedures and costs must be simplified at the most. The leader of “Uniagroprotect” states that the farmers are interested in strengthening their lands, considering it as “a normal thing” in the conditions of a free market economy, when the fragmentation of plots hinders the development of businesses. The fear that the program was elaborated for the creation of agricultural cooperatives was overcome, Slusari says. Although a half of the agricultural lands of the Republic of Moldova are already cultivated on the base of rent contracts, meaning the lands are consolidated through this method. Slusari mentioned that the land owners have little practice in strengthening. He hopes that together with the implementation of pilot-projects, foreign technical assistance projects will be attracted in order to contribute to the assimilation of strengthening according to western standards. According to him, the best strengthening is made on one’s own plot, because it excludes the risk of litigations on cancellation of contracts. So, strengthening lands through rent, although constitutes a first step, is though a weak point, instability generator of the reform if taking into consideration the contracts’ cancellation possibility. Strengthening through rent is an impediment for attracting investors in agriculture. The low prices for agricultural lands are explained by the low demand on the land market, which is influenced directly by the situation of agriculture, not the most attractive of the national economy. “Agriculture is in general the most vulnerable area of the economy, taking into consideration natural disasters, which are more or less present every year, fact that from the start is not contributing to the attractiveness of agriculture”, Slusari said. At the same time, neither the owners of agricultural lands demonstrate their willing to sell agricultural lands, although the number of sell-purchase transactions increases every year. The fear of massive sell of the agricultural lands, as a result of land privatization implementation was not justified. The farmers think logically, Slusari says, because at the moment the average price of one hectare in Moldova is of 5-6 thousand lei, which is a very low price, and in the case of transmitting to rent the lands the owner gets 1000 lei annually. The soviet type Kolkhozes, would not have been efficient in the conditions of the market economy, Slusari declared, answering in this way to the question of Info-Prim Neo if through this program is not tried to return to kolkhozes. The Kolkhoz was liquidated in order to adjust the organizational forms to the European standards. The kolkhozes were justified only in the conditions of planned economy, when all the material and natural resources were ensured by the state, the only supplier and customer in the same time. The privatization of agricultural lands was performed to offer to their owners the possibility to know diagrammatic where is their land located and further decide whether to sell, transmit to rent or cultivate the land individually. According to Slusari any organizational-juridical form has the right to live if it brings profit. According to the quoted source the organizational form is only a superficial element, at present being necessary to change the mentality of agricultural producers. “We must not produce and afterwards ask to whom we sell the products” Slusari said, mentioning that the perfect variant for each company would be to have a market specialist who would be responsible of analyzing the situation of national and foreign markets, in order to determine the necessities of the markets. Slusari said there are insufficient specialists in agricultural marketing, but he welcomed the creation within the area ministry of a Marketing Center, activity of which is based on the analysis of markets and searching new export and promotion methods for our products.