Opinion/Kritike

The following are excerpts of an overview of the Albanian agricultural situation in the period 1991-1992. What has changed is an indication of the worsening of the problem. As everyone is a aware, there is no future for the country, without a definitive solution of the "land ownership saga".

PRIVATIZATION OR AGRARIAN REFORM?
Altin Topi
Republika / November 1992

An individual is free when he is an owner: owner of his will, his intelligence, his ability, his house, his business and his land.

The collectivist communist mentality casts its strong colors onto the most sensitive issue of the political transition, the reformation of agriculture. The Land Act already announced in all East European countries different from one country to the other, is the first indication of the different communist inheritance, as well as of the speed of changes that these countries are undergoing through the reformation of the agriculture.

....
The proclamation of the Land Act a year ago in Albania was considered as a success by the opposition at the time(the Democratic Party), it was assumed that finally separated the agriculture from the socialist agriculture by directing it toward the private property. A year after of the passing of the law, a new tendency is emerging. The farmer and the ex-owner(expropriated) are looking toward the establishment of the direct legal right to the property and land. Meanwhile, the Parliament elected by both sides is the arbiter that according to the
rules of the democracy, decides on the fate of this law.

As a result of the Land Act, the actual prevailing form of small land ownerships in Albania, is the major obstacle to the agriculture reform. This fact enhances our Parliament to pass a law which will legalize the landing and selling of the agricultural land. This situation will highlight the shortcomings and the injustice of the existing law and its amendment on the project regarding the compensation to the former owners. The majority of the small farmers considered by the law as the new land owners, might be able to sell their land at much higher and better prices. In the meantime big landowners will appear. The origin of the big landowners will be the "red caterpillars", waiting the end of the winter to hatch in spring, in order to materialize their unseen enormous illegal financial resources now in legal and lifetime investments. It is here that we must look to find out the meaning of such unexplained bitterness of socialist partisanship in Parliament, and why suddenly, they voted to pass the Land Act, claiming credit and authorship.

If we accept the status-quo of the large number of the small ownerships of land, we have to face the basic challenge, the transformation of the sector into an efficient and technologically advanced one. All these small economies should overcome the inefficient infrastructure of the agriculture, the complete lack of the credit system of our banking institutions, which effect the specific needs of the small owners, and the existence of an industry unable to supply the up-to-date technology.

After half a century of communism, the farmer's mentality doesn't accept the concept of the "gift" by giving him land, very similar to the communist Agrarian Reform. The Albanian farmer knows how far his ownership rights can reach. This is the expression of his freedom of choice. At the time of the Agrarian Reform of 1946, the land lost its market value because the right to buy and sell had no substance.

But what about the former owner and how he will be positioned in this new distribution of land?

Until now we were not able to define the former owner anything else but as Lenin's classification: the rich, the middle, and the poor farmer. The latifondists were left out of this classification. As we know also, King Zog I of Albania, nationalized most of their enormous land wealth. In Albania, in 1944, there were seven latifondist families that owned 14,554 ha of land, an average 2,079 ha per family; 4,713 rich families that owned 91,113 ha of land, an average of 19 ha per family; 128,961 families of middle and small owners that owned 237,961 ha of land, an average of 1.8 ha per family, and 21,544 farmer families with no land.
Today the agricultural land totals 702,603 ha, 165,673 ha are owned by the government and 536,742 ha are owned by the farmers. Taking into account the demographic movements, the total agricultural land, the past and the present population of Albania, the revision of the Land Act is not as traumatic as we might think.

If we don't make changes on the Land Act and if we pass the Amendment about the compensation to the former owners as it is actually projected, we will do an injustice and withhold the agriculture reform. In the way we legalize the undeclared economic advantage of the "red caterpillar". According to the Amendment on the Land Act on the project, the former owner based on the Lenin's classification will be compensated in the value or percentage for a arbitrary fixed price by
the government. It is not known in what period of time this compensation will take place and what resources will be used. When we look at the level of compensation to the former owner provide by the Amendment we feel really sorry. The price of the land is decided by the market. The market, this indispensable pricing mechanism, is totally ignored by the arbitrarily fixed "price". The compensation in
value that the former owner will receive is so irrelevant that it cannot be introduced in the market competition to be invested in other areas. At the same time, the new owner, will have total advantage of overall market mechanism, where the land market will play also an indispensable role in the future of Albania. By restricting the land market, we inhibit the agriculture and financial reform, and all this will force the government to play a major role in the agricultural quota, a role that our government is not able to play any longer.
...
At present the government is the biggest owner, its owns a 20% of the total agricultural land. This might serve to ease the conflict between the government, the new owner, and the former owner. The Land Act must take into consideration this new relationship and must balance the complex situation of the Albanian agricultural reform. Only the recognition of the land ownership of the former owners, the land market, and the legitimization of the lifetime property rights, will improve administration and management of the land and will increase the long term and efficient investments. Albania can be integrated with the rest of Europe only with a complete and long lasting solution in regard to the private property.

As a conclusion, if the Parliament doesn't reconsider and revise the Land Act and its Amendment, I truly believe that we will see repeated the same scenario of a year ago. First, the socialists will disagree very strongly about the compensation to the former owners and than all of a sudden will vote to pass the Amendment, claiming also its authorship. What is left for the democracy in Albania after all?