ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT TO CONSOLIDATE ARABLE LANDS

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 30. ARMINFO. 99% of Armenia’s arable lands are
highly desintegrated so the government is drafting a pilot program to
consolidate them and to improve their use schemes.

The chairman of the state property register committee Manuk Vardanyan
says that an interdepartment commission has been set up to implement
the program. Various methods will be tested during the program with
priority given to those accepted by specific communities and
farmers. Consolidation can be effected according to land type, cost,
type of use and melioration.

The key point of the program is to develop a state policy on effective
land use encouraging farmers with soft loans, equipment leasing, tax
concessions, guaranteed harvest purchase like in wine and tobacco
growing. The consolidation process has been underway in Armenia for
three years already. 5,100 h of land were bought in the country in
Jan-Sept 2004 with communal budget revenues totalling 1.8 bln AMD
(almost $3.5 mln).

FAO representative David Palmer says that a relevant information and
education base will be developed for the program this including
workshops and working conferences, training courses for farmers on how
to more effectively use land resources. The key objective of the
program is to reveal financially feasible and socially and
ecologically acceptable ways of land use efficiency raising.

The program will be carried out by the committee and FAO for two
years. Presently Armenia has 330,000 farms each owning an average of
1.3 h of arable land.