Agrarian law at the Faculty of European Studies and Regional Development, SUA in Nitra

We could hardly find an area where more legislative changes were adopted, than in the sphere of agriculture. That is the main reason why the Department of Law and the Department of European Policies decided to organize a conference devoted to the agrarian issues already for ninth times. This year, the emphasis was put on three major areas, in particular land relations in agriculture, entrepreneurship in agriculture and the EU common agricultural policy. The conference was organized under the auspices of the dean of FESRD, doc. Ing. Oľga Roháčiková, PhD., who stated, that according to the participation at the conference it is clear, that the conference topic is not considered important only by the Faculty members but also by all the other participants and professional public.

The first keynote speaker within the plenary session was Jean – Baptiste Millard, general secretary of the French Association of Rural Law, who introduced a French NGO SAFER. SAFER regulates the agricultural land market specially when it comes to acquisition of land and setting up the price of agricultural land. The presentation provoked a lively discussion since the issues of land leasing and acquisition resonate on daily basis.

Similarly interesting was the presentation of the second keynote speaker, Aneta Suchoń from the Faculty of Law and Public Administration, University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznan, who spoke about the ownership and tenancy rights to agricultural land in Poland. Within the discussion, the participants concluded that even though our countries are neighbouring countries, the situation in Poland is significantly different, since only 22% of agricultural land is rented there comparing to 85% - 90% in Slovakia. Such situation resulted from different socio- political development in Slovakia and Poland.

Martin Illáš from the Section of Legislation, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of SR, within his interesting presentation dealing with legal regulation of agricultural land, explained the current position of Slovakia towards the European Commission in relation to the regulation of agricultural land transfer.

The concluding presentation of the plenary session was held by prof. RNDr. Pavol Bielek, DrSC., who presented interesting facts about the soil-information systems in Slovakia as a tool for the protection of agricultural land.

Additionaly, there were presented also information about the projects addressed at the faculty, namely SULANET project no. 564651-EPP-1-2015-1-SK- EPPJMO-NETWORK
, which deals with issues of sustainable land management

During the afternoon part, within the thematic sections, the conference participants could enjoy presentations of speakers from Italy, Poland-where Sulanet partner presented result from Sulanet project  and Slovakia concerning land communities, agricultural land protection, entrepreneurship on land, as well as landscaping.

The discussed issues of legal relations linked to agricultural land clearly belong to the most important ones, as Václav Cílek says:

"... the greatest natural wealth of every country is not oil or gold, but water and soil."