Land Consolidation Model in the County of Varaždin

During the long period of time, Croatian agriculture was characterized by double structure of ownership. In the past, in Socialism, the ownership of agricultural land in Croatia and development investments in agriculture were directed toward a small number of large agricultural companies in social ownership, while small family farms were marginalized, just as it was the case in the majority of former socialist countries. In the County of Varaždin there are 33,415 family farms which own 52,723.35 ha of agricultural land with an average size of a parcel of 0.336 ha. Such fragmentation of land cannot guarantee profitable agricultural production, so one of the priorities of agricultural policy of the County of Varaždin is land consolidation. The County of Varaždin subsidizes consolidation of existing lots with 480 Euros/ha, and if the total size of the land that belongs to a family farm enlarges, with 345 Euros/ha. Between 2003 and 2007 a total of 683 farmers received subsidies. A recipient of the subsidy on average increased his farm by 1.2 ha. The County of Varaždin is going to continue such stimulation of consolidation, but without significant interference of the state the process of consolidation is not going to intensify. The state should participate more considerably because it is necessary to remove the causes of unfavorable land structure used by family farms, such as unlimited division of plots of agricultural land as a consequence of inheritance procedures or other forms of dissolution of joint ownership. Processes opposed to consolidation of the agricultural land should also be prevented