Journal of Agribusiness and Rural Development (Apr 2012)
Lease of agricultural land of the Treasury in the light of new regulations
Abstract
After 1992 lease was in Poland the primary form of land management of Treasury agricul-ture property. It was preferred by both the state because of the possibility of quick disposal of property and by farmers because of the need to involve the smaller one-off funding, which could be used instead for production and investment. In recent years the importance of leasing as a way of public land management has been decreasing in favour of the sale. It follows with the growing demand for agricultural land, as well as government policies and actions undertaken by the Agricultural Property Agency. This results in the new law regula-tions on public agricultural property management, which on 3 December 2011 introduced significant changes in the public land lease. The aim of new regulations is to accelerate the privatization of state land resources, which will be carried out in the first place by disabling part of the leased agricultural land from large-area farms, as well as for sale of the land, for which the lease will be ended. In this article the author tries to assess the impact of introduced regulations on the role of leasing of public agricultural land in Poland. It is expected that due to the new law, the lease will concern mainly small plots, while interest in the lease as a way to increase land resources by individual farmers will be reduced.