Sustainable Land Consolidation in Lithuania - The Second Wave of Land Reform

Abstract

In Lithuania land reform is essentially changing the land-use system of this country. Today many deficiencies of this system are evident. Former collective farms and large plots of land have been gradually changed into smaller ones. A result of this process has revealed various drawbacks: such as lack of roads leading to the land use, land-owner's land formed of several plots, small land areas, irregular land plots configuration.

With the growing up competition in the market, it is difficult for small farms with small plots of land to compete not only with the European Union countries but in the local Lithuanian market as well [Čaplikas J., 2002]. A number of sites aggregated for one land use, convenient access to the land use and other important economic, agricultural problems can be solved by consolidation projects.

For many years land consolidation projects have been prepared not only in European but also in Asian countries, while Lithuania is just starting to develop them. Our designers draw the ideas from foreign experts. In China land consolidation projects are being developed both in rural and urban areas, thus their designers and engineers can more effectively control their sustainable development [Manchuan Li, 2010].

In January 2011, the National Land Service under the Ministry of Agriculture informed Lithuanian society that requests for new land consolidation projects were being collected. However two questions remain open, namely, how designers will eliminate all barriers which have hindered the first projects, and whether new projects will economically be as effective as those developed in Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands.

This study involves analysis and evaluation of the consolidation project implemented in Plungės district, Šateikiai cadastral area. The respondents are participants and an organizer who has analyzed the views on the progress and results of the project. Results show that our country experts should set more ambitious objectives for the project which should become a tool for correcting land reform mistakes.