Changes in farming structures in the Czech Republic as a result of land reform and privatisation

The necessity to restructure agriculture goes hand-in-hand with the general transition process in the Czech Republic. From the outset there were both economic considerations and a moral dimension to restitution and privatisation of land which lay behind the transformation of the agrarian sector. Much agricultural land (39 percent) and assets were confiscated and almost all remaining area and assets were collectivised after World War II and in the early 1950s when the Communists took power. The moral principle of rectifying this injustice was the main legal base of the sector transformation. Act No. 229 of 1991 (Land Law) 1 covering restitution and relocation of property rights to land and other agricultural property was accompanied by the Collective Farm Transformation Law a year later. The principal objective of the transformation of collective farms into new co-operatives was to establish clear individual ownership relationships to all the property of these collective farms.