Ministry of Agriculture are responsible for agriculture, forest sector, fisheries, rural development, veterinery and food.
Functions of ministry are: Develop agriculture, forest sector and fishery policies; Organisation and coordination of agriculture, forest sector and fishery policies implementation.
Objective of the rural development policy is improving competitiveness of agriculture and forestry, applying new methods and technologies, and particularly, supporting young farmers.
The concept of land consolidation is new in Latvia. Its main tasks are to eliminate land fragmentation and to facilitate farms of optimal size. One of the most important preconditions of land consolidation is forming of optimal size farmland plots in property and use, and land fragmentation, which has a major impact on both the operating conditions and other rural development processes. Land fragmentation affects not only land management, but it also increases transport costs.
The object of the study reflected in the paper is the market sector of agricultural lands in Latvia. The goal set out in this scientific paper is to explore the development trends current in the target sector of the market and identify problems and barriers to successful progress common to the entire real estate market in this country.
The ongoing processes in agriculture, and the national economy in general, as well as continuous targeted reconstruction of the European Union Common Agricultural and Rural Development Policy, and other processes of globalisation and international integration, steadily and directly resound to Latvia, and create new objectives related to the use of land. The agreement on rural development adopted during the European Union Salzburg Conference has also established or determined new functions for the use of land.
The current support policy is increasing gaps in land management intensity among different regions of the country. The support policy for agricultural and rural development does not deal with solutions for land abandonment or environmental objectives, because the abandonment is becoming a hidden, environmental policy and rural development process, which is more expensive for society. Some alternative approaches and principles for designing a new agricultural land policy for Latvia could decrease the policy costs and make land management more targeted and acceptable for society.
The basic agricultural structure in Poland consists of small and medium family-owned farmsteads. Public funds grant their support primarily to farmers capable of competing efficiently within the EU market. In most cases, that means farmsteads covering a larger area. It is the real property market that regulates the agrarian structure. Therefore, the goal of this paper is to present the situation on the farmland market in respect to Poland's membership in the European Union.
