LANDOWNERS PARTICIPATION AND
GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES FOR LAND
CONSOLIDATION IN BULGARIA
Violeta Dirimanova
BULGARIA
IDARI workshop
Galway, November, 2003
The Problem
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Agricultural reform in Bulgaria has led to land
fragmentation
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The government has been unsuccessful in its
attempts to solve the problem
Purpose of the study
To propose institutional options for land
consolidation on the basis of analyses of the
actors’ behavior and institutional settings
Objectives of study

Government initiatives and actors’ behavior
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Factors constraining the landowners and
other actors attitudes
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Institutional options

Evaluation of the effects
Theoretical approach
• Basic factors
 Frame conditions - 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
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
Proposition and research hypotheses
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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
What Institutional Options?
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Land Market
Land Tax
Land Trust
Voluntary/ Compulsory consolidation
Cooperation
Methodology of analysis
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Legislation and literature
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Semi - structured interviews with the actors for
investigating:
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property rights in practice;
the factors of the governance structure;
the actor’s behavior;
the actors’ response to the options
Proposed survey’s regions
Thank you very much for your attention!