Some fundamental thoughts about the farm structure based regulation of the arable land market

Kurucz, Mihály

Keywords: agricultural farm as production and legal unit; market of living and real instruments; quotas and subsidies; agro-producer

The distinct regulation of the market for arable land, separated from the other elements of agricultural farms such as machinery, equipment, animal stock, human labour, knowledge, and management seems to be a fundamentally false approach from the point of view of agricultural law. Beside the elements of farms such as plough land, buildings and structures, and equipment, the farm itself can be a single unit of agricultural assets.
This integrated kind of regulation of farm assets in the market provides us with an objective and clear basis for identifying the holdings of agricultural legal entities. Hungarian and European law tolerate the limitations of the free movement of assets, if the limitation is determined and urged by public interest and the items of limitation are suitable for reaching the objectives.
There is a clear demand amongst Hungarian farmers for more agricultural land. The size or the number of farms is from a strictly legal point of view determined by the sizes of the arable plots. In this respect the preferences are determined by the rural development policy interests of different countries.
The foundation, sale, purchase and mortgage of agricultural farms such as legal units makes it possible for the legislator to regulate the different personal and assets relationships of agricultural farms in a clear and objective way. Moreover this integrated type of regulation can be the basis of treating and handling of different market subjects applying for public fiscal subsidies and entitlements.

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