Kosovo's most qualitative agricultural lands have been sworn

The area of agricultural land in Kosovo from year to year is shrinking. Agricultural lands have become industrial zones, business, commercial objects and collective dwellings.

Since the post-war, in Kosovo numerous hectares of agricultural land, mainly about magistrates in all municipalities in Kosovo, have been used for unfriendly purposes.

The conversion of agricultural land is highlighted as a problem in providing future agricultural products.

Official records lack how many hectares of agricultural land have been changed.

But according to some data from the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Rural Development, per year about 500 hectares of agricultural land are changed. And according to the Agricultural Union data, that goes even more, and that goes up to 1,000 acres.

Idriz Gashi, chief of the Agriculture Land Division, operating under the Ministry of Agriculture, told Radio Free Europe that in terms of the change in agricultural lands, the Agriculture Ministry has no precise data.

According to him, Kosovo municipalities, which under the Law on Agriculture, have not brought this data.

But, Gashi suggests that the latest data on this is from a project made years ago in co-operation with the European Commission.

“Based in a controversial territorial and legal analysis that the Ministry of Agriculture has implemented with a European Commission project, where international experts have been involved, it is estimated that in Kosovo within a year, approximately from agricultural land to invisibility, some 500 hectares go through 500 hectares planned and unplanned”, Gashi says.

According to the latest agricultural registration data, agricultural land is estimated to be 413,635 hectares.

If this agricultural area is estimated per capita, according to Gashi is very low and below the average standard of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

According to FAO standards, the agricultural land limit per capita is about 17 gold to provide material goods for a sustainable humanization, until, roughly, we have only 15 agricultural land per capita and are under the existential limit. But that does not pose any danger to the future, since 50,000 hectares of forest land can be transformed into agricultural land”, Gashi says.

Agriculture experts in Kosovo have repeatedly warned that changing agricultural land's destination in the future will bring consequences, in the absence of providing basic agricultural products.

Representatives of farm unions also raise this concern.

The chairman of the Agricultural Union Federation, Tahir Tahiri, in a conversation for Radio Free Europe says that since post-war construction has been done on agricultural lands.

The “estimates that between 800 and 1,000 hectares of agricultural land are seized annually. This for agriculture and the state of Kosovo is huge damage that will have major consequences in the future. We have small areas of agricultural land per capita. We're depending on imported agricultural products, this import in the future will grow. The agricultural land vow is reducing the opportunity to provide agricultural products, but it also reduces agriculture development”, Tahiri says.

Kosovo's most quality agricultural land, according to Tahiri, has been sworn and according to him, that agricultural land on which it is built will no longer be able to return to arable land.

Those lands are protected by the Law on Agricultural Lands, but those laws are ignored by our institutions, unfortunately. Municipal frameworks allow and issue permits for construction of various facilities on agricultural lands that are protected by law. As unions we have reacted to competent institutions to end this phenomenon and release agricultural lands that are usurped, but so far there is nothing in this direction”, Tahiri says.

Kosovo has been in force since 2005 on agricultural land, which aims to establish the legal basis for exploitation, protection and regulation of agricultural land.

According to this law, the owner or user of agricultural land is obliged to use agricultural land in a way that fits earth's natural properties, not reducing its value and using relevant agritechnic measures.

This law also envisions penalties for physical or legal persons who change agricultural land's destination or exploit it for unfriendly purposes.

The sentence, by law, envisions a total of 1,000 euros to 10,000 euros.