The transition to the electronic type of auction of state agricultural land, conducted by the Agricultural Land Administration, has been realized so far in 16 municipalities, and new tenders are forthcoming in nine more municipalities out of a total of 145 on the territory of Serbia.
The novelty is the leasing of the state of the country for 15 years, in some cadastral municipalities and for 30 years, which is a measure that is not approved by farmers.
In Kikinda, 5,439 hectares were offered, of which 2,200 hectares were intended for the Tennis company only for one year, while the rest was auctioned for 15 years.
In the cadastral municipality of Backi Monostor, 25.8 hectares were offered for 30 years, while 3,982 hectares were auctioned in Sombor, of which 2,015 hectares for 15 years. The Jancic farm from Kljajicevo, Sombor municipality, managed to lease the fields electronically.
– The procedure is simple. However, unlike the bids that were held live before, in this case there is no competition, but the price you offered for the country is fixed and a ranking list is made. For the last six years, we have been participating in auctions, cultivating some state land and having something in our ownership. We are engaged in field production, we produce corn, grain and beets – Gordana Jancic explains.
Information about online auctions in Zrenjanin was received with much less optimism, where farmers have been complaining about discrimination for years and following with uncertainty what will happen on April 2, the day of the scheduled auction.
– There were no explanations or information on time, so I don’t know who will participate except the eligible ones, who also took the land in previous years, suppressing farmers. In Botosani, 186 hectares of state land are planned for auction, mostly of good quality. The situation is the same as last year, that country has already been modeled, although it has not been leased – explains the president of the local community of Botos, Dalibor Paskulov, who believes that such an environment was created by the state.
Law on State Agricultural Land
The Association of Banat Farmers also agrees that the Law on State Agricultural Land did not bring order but created new problems for farmers.
– We have been pointing out for a long time the disastrous measures in agriculture, the auctions that are late and lead to the degradation of agricultural land because it is used outside the sowing deadlines. We used to have an orderly situation, but with the amendments to the Law on Agricultural Land and then with the adoption of a special decree, a chaotic situation was intentionally created. Now the picture is bare, on the one hand large amounts of land are given to cattle breeders and on the other hand the remaining land is leased by financial groups, so farmers are put in a situation to give up their jobs or come to land by renting state land from cattle breeders, which is illegal. The situation is similar in all cadastral municipalities. The ad is published and displayed as if there is an auction, and in fact mostly low-quality land is offered. There are few populated places where there is really land that can be cultivated, especially since there are a significant number of farmers who live from it. Such measures have already caused damage to agriculture, now we are only looking at the consequences – explains Dragan Kleut, coordinator of the Agriculture Council of the Assembly of Free Serbia and president of the Association of Farmers of Banat.
In Zrenjanin, 9,010 hectares of state land will be put up for auction, of which 8,266 hectares are leased for 15 years, while 744 hectares are planned for a one-year lease. The land intended for the German company Tenis is in a court dispute with Banat farmers and is leased for only one year, BiF reports.
