Land Consolidation Initiatives in Bulgaria: Actors' Behavior and Institutional Options

1. LANDOWNERS PARTICIPATION AND GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES FOR LAND CONSOLIDATION IN BULGARIA Violeta Dirimanova BULGARIA IDARI workshop Galway, November, 2003

2. The Problem • Agricultural reform in Bulgaria has led to land fragmentation • The government has been unsuccessful in its attempts to solve the problem

3. Purpose of the study To propose institutional options for land consolidation on the basis of analyses of the actors’behavior and institutional settings

4. Objectives of study • Government initiatives and actors’ behavior • Factors constraining the landowners and other actors attitudes • Institutional options • Evaluation of the effects

5. Theoretical approach • Basic factors • Frameconditions - low income level, high unemployment • Transition in agriculture - land reform, unpredictability • Resources characteristics - spatial location, multiple use, different quality • Local social arena • Landowners - many leaving in towns and are old • Farmer operators - many small and some large • Cooperatives - cultivate land, but also rent some to commercial farmers • Government - land market, land consolidation, land trust

6. Theoretical approach • Institutional setting • Government structure: market, information, transaction costs, knowledge system • Property rights to land: private property rights; use, sell, rent, inherit, conversion • Land fragmentation • Ownership and usage • Effects • Low productivity • Land degradation • Land abandonment

7. Proposition and research hypotheses • Main proposition: Agricultural reform and low income levels has led to land abandonment, degradation, and low land productivity. • Sub-proposition 1: Agricultural reform, low income levels, and the specific land property rights forms actors’ behavior. The land owners do not have sufficient incentives to manage their holdings actively. • Sub-proposition 2: The actors’ behavior has created the existing institutional settings. • Sub-proposition 3: The established institutional settings preserves the land fragmentation in Bulgaria • Sub-proposition 4: Land fragmentation causes land abandonment, degradation, and low productivity

8. What Institutional Options? • Land Market • Land Tax • Land Trust • Voluntary/ Compulsory consolidation • Cooperation

9. Methodology of analysis • Legislation and literature • Semi - structured interviews with the actors for investigating: • property rights in practice; • the factors of the governance structure; • the actor’s behavior; • the actors’ response to the options

10. Proposed survey’s regions

11. Thank you very much for your attention!