Farmers call for faster adoption of land acquisition conditions

This week, on May 1, ten-year-old land restrictions on the purchase of agricultural land by citizens of other European Union member states will cease to apply, however, it is still unclear when the amendments to the Law "On the Privatization of Land in Rural Areas" prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and farmers' non-governmental organizations could come into force.

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The Association “Farmers' Saeima” and the Latvian Association of Agricultural Cooperatives support the work of the members of the Saeima Committee on National Economy, Agrarian, Environmental and Regional Policy on improving the amendments, and call on the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Justice to devote more human resources to this goal, as well as to involve experts from the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development in the work. The involvement of qualified personnel in the development of amendments to the law would clearly promote both the pace and quality of its consideration.

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Deputy Chairwoman of the Board of the Latvian Steel Association, Maira Dzelzkalēja: “By actively participating in the committee meetings and working groups, we see that the work on these amendments is quite complicated. Taking into account the significant experience of other countries in setting various restrictions on the sale of agricultural land, Latvia has a good opportunity to find the most suitable option, while learning from the mistakes of others. Currently, there are very few issues left to consider in order to consider the law in the second reading, and we believe that this will be possible during the first plenary session in May. However, in order to adopt the draft law in a high-quality and timely manner in the third and final reading in this Saeima session, the responsible institutions must think about increasing their capacity by attracting additional resources, otherwise we risk that the adoption of the criteria will drag on for a very long time. As of May 1, any EU citizen will be able to purchase Latvian agricultural land, and in this way we may lose part of our country's strategic resource in the long term. Therefore, we call for the adoption of the land acquisition criteria as soon as possible.”

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As stated by Ilze Aizsilniece, Deputy Chairwoman of the Board of the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry: "The amendments must be viewed in a broad context, as this is one of the rare times when such a large-scale and responsible bill has been introduced in the legislation of the agricultural sector, affecting very different interest groups, not only farmers, but every landowner, foreign investors and others. More than halfway to the adoption of the restrictions has been achieved, but in order to achieve maximum resolution of the objections of the parties involved, it is urgently necessary to involve additional expertise from other state institutions in the work of the commission and the Ministry of Agriculture."