During the territorial reform of Latvia separate parishes and towns will be merged into larger areas. Therefore it is necessary to consider economical and spatial conditions, which develops historically, in context of new space quality regulations in the European Union countries.

We report the findings of a unique nation-wide experiment to price access to our public lands. In 2004, the U.S. Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act mandated the creation of a new annual pass to cover all federal recreation sites that charge an entrance or access fee. Our task was to assist federal policymakers in determining an appropriate price for this new pass. Toward that end, we administered a contingent valuation phone survey to over 3700 households to estimate households’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the new pass at a variety of different prices.

Land consolidation is a new concept in Latvia, although in other countries of the world it has been known since the end of the 18th century. Land consolidation is implemented to improve the spatial structure of land holdings and agricultural infrastructure and to rationally use natural resources. It is particularly significant in agriculture when establishing farms of optimal size and territorial location. Land fragmentation hinders not only land management but also increases the transport cost.

The objective of the study was the attempt of estimation of the State Farms (PGR) evaluation. After the investigations of dominant trends in public agriculture, the property transformations in Polish agriculture were analyzed in macroeconomic conditions with regard to a

The ownership of agricultural land by foreign nationals is currently an extremely sensitive political issue in many of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries as they move towards European Union accession. During the past decade economic reforms in CEE have resulted in substantial welfare declines within agricultural sectors across the region.

This paper introduces enforcement costs and farmer noncompliance into the economic analysis of the USDA conservation program on highly erodible lands. A model of heterogeneous producers is developed to determine the economic causes of farmer noncompliance with the provisions of the conservation program. In addition, the paper determines the enforcement policy design that can induce conservation compliance and examines the effectiveness of the current enforcement policy in deterring producer noncompliance.

In this study, capital structure of farms owning the farm lands which were sold was investigated in Ereğli district, Konya province. As a result of investigation active capital of examined farms are 65.555 YTL. 80.43 % of active capital was land capital and 19.58 % of active capital was farm capital. Soil capital had the biggest portion with 57.59 % in active capital. 97.46 % of passive capital was capital stock and 2.54 % of passive capital was liability capital. As a result of this study, farms were not working efficiently in research area, because of instability of capital structure.

Contents: Virginia Farming in Transition, by Wayne D. Purcell; Growth in Virginia: People and Jobs on the Move, by Todd McNew and Bradford Mills; Managing Agriculture and Growth in Virginia: The Role of Planning and Zoning, by Michael Chandler; Tools and Incentives to Manage Agriculture and Growth, by Jesse J. Richardson, Jr.; Preserving Farmland: A National Imperative, by Mary Heinricht

More than 124 governmental entities concerned about suburban sprawl and farmland loss have implemented farmland preservation programs preserving 1.67 million acres at a cost of $3.723 billion. Yet little analysis on these programs' effectiveness in slowing farmland loss has been conducted. Using a unique 50-year 269 county panel data set on preservation programs and farmland loss for six Mid-Atlantic States, we employ the propensity score matching method to find strong empirical evidence that these programs have had a statistically significant effect on the rate of farmland loss.

Previously published empirical models of U.S. farmland prices are reviewed and reestimated including recent data. It is apparent that structural changes have occurred. A simple single equation econometric model with less economic structure appears to forecast better than a simultaneous equation model. Finally, Box-Jenkins forecasts are roughly as good as those based upon a simultaneous equation econometric model, but somewhat inferior to the single equation model. The results suggest that further research may be needed to explain recent movements of farmland prices.