Law on agricultural land.

This Law regulates the maintenance and protection of agricultural land, general terms and issues for the correct use of agricultural land, including several related topics such as changes in the use of agricultural land and related fees, and the Land Fund provisions.
The Law consists of 8 Chapters divided into 108 articles: General provisions (I); Maintenance, protection and use of agricultural land (II); Change of use of the agricultural land and fees (III); State owned land tenure (IV); The Land Fund (V); Administrative and inspection supervision (VI); Penalty provisions (VII); Transitional and final provisions (VIII). Other topics elaborated in these Chapters are: complete rules on land use, land lease; Register of Farmers and its related rules and obligations (including the obligation to keep records on the application of fertilizers, both mineral and organic, soil improvers and pesticides (art. 7); irrigation issues; private agricultural land issues (arts. 14 and 15); fishing pond (production and technological unit of agricultural land intended for the production of fish and other aquatic organisms, see article 51); lease of common pastures (arts. 55 and 56); temporary use of state-owned agricultural land (art. 57); sale of state-owned agricultural land (arts. 59-71, also article 72 related to the sale by direct negotiation); building rights (arts. 77-79).
One of the other main aims of this Law is to enable the sustainable and controlled production of food and to protect human health, animal and plant life, to implement the undisturbed use and necessary protection of nature and environment, and to protect agricultural land from possible adverse effects and/or damage (erosion) to land quality, production or loss of production capacity for all agricultural products in general. Some of the basic rules of this text are: agricultural land must be maintained suitable for agricultural production; maintenance of agricultural land eligible for agricultural production has also its preventive issues (possible reduction of land fertility or other); landowners and owners of agricultural land are obliged to maintain the existing groundwater drainage functions; the Croatian Center for Agriculture, Food and the Village shall carry out the monitoring and control of the agricultural land status. Agricultural land is of great interest to the Republic of Croatia and has its special protection. Holders of property rights may not be foreign legal and natural persons, unless otherwise provided by an international agreement and special regulations, or by the principle of inheritance subject to reciprocity (State reciprocity statutes and the inheritance rights of nonresident aliens). Agricultural land, object of this Law, is here defined as land present on the territory of the Republic of Croatia, used for all agricultural cultivations and breeds, arable fields, gardens, meadows, pastures, orchards, olive groves, vineyards, and further including ponds, use of nearby rivers and swamps, including other land parcels that can be brought to such agricultural production.