National Strategy on agricultural land consolidation 2012-2020.

The National Strategy on agricultural land consolidation in the Republic of Macedonia for the period from the year 2012 until the year 2020 which also contains an Operational Plan aims to address various challenges and opportunities in the agricultural sector. The strategy focuses on enhancing the efficiency and productivity of agricultural land through consolidation processes. It outlines the organizational structure and staffing plans for the Land Consolidation Directorate, including the establishment of the Land Bank to facilitate land exchange and abandoned land management. The strategy also highlights potential threats such as emigration from rural areas and lack of mutual trust among rural populations.
This text in order to increase the competitiveness of the Macedonian agricultural production and to improve the living conditions in rural areas, aims at meeting the following strategic objective: “Mitigation and graduate overcoming of the unfavourable structure of the agricultural land as a main resource for the economic activities in the rural areas in order to increase the competitiveness of the Macedonian agricultural production, to improve the living conditions in rural areas and to provide sustainable use of natural resources.” The land consolidation policies for agricultural land are defined as a process of overall territorial planning related to the reparcellation of land and improvement of agriculture and the existing management of the territory covered, followed by a number of measures for development of rural areas. The Land consolidation instruments will also be directed towards decreasing the number of cases with unclear ownership and involvement of the abandoned land as well as preventing such further cases. Due to the stated structural problems and the impossibility to overcome them through market operations, the multi-functional positive effects of agriculture and sustainable development of rural areas, consolidation of agricultural land is recognized as an activity of public interest. In order to achieve better results, the active land consolidation policies will be combined with adequate adjustment of other policies that affect the prevention of further fragmentation or the beginning and intensification of the consolidation of agricultural land. The positive experiences of other EU countries demonstrate that the reparcellation and land consolidation projects have the largest effect when they support infrastructural initiatives regarding the road and irrigation network but also when these policies are part of the integrated approach to rural development. Important structural changes in agriculture and forestry can take place only if land consolidation is part of the integral rural development policy. In addition to the objectives related to improvement of production and competitiveness, land consolidation will be implemented in terms of environmental protection and improvement by recognizing the different local needs and solutions.
Specific objectives identified in this text, with the purpose of achieving the overall strategic objective, are as follows: 1. Decreased fragmentation of land parcels by their grouping and improvement of the location of the land plots in terms of the agricultural holding set-up; 2. Improvement of the irregular shape of land parcels so as to apply modern mechanization and production technologies; 3. Increase in the average size of small agricultural holdings; 4. Providing access from the parcels to new or refurbished irrigation systems and improved or newly-built road infrastructure; 5. Decreased surfaces of unused and abandoned agricultural land; 6. Mitigating the negative effects on the optimal land structure during the construction of facilities of public interest (road, social or other kind of infrastructure) or simultaneous spatial reorganization of the existing land parcels in order to improve the existing unfavourable structure; and 7. Improved environmental protection and sustainable management of natural resources.