Good morning, everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you to this webinar on land banking with the focus on the application of land banking instruments in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. We are an FAO finalizing a study on good European practice on land banking, and this webinar is also part of the consultation of the main findings of the study and its key recommendations. My name is Morten Hartbeest and I'm land tenure officer at the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and I'm the moderator of the webinar today. This webinar will discuss Western European land banking experiences and how to build on these good practices when we are supporting the introduction of land banking instruments in countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. I will now hand over to Raymond Jeele, the regional program leader of the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia for the opening before I will introduce the program of the next two hours and also give a short technical introduction to land banking. Raymond, over to you. Thank you, Morten, for giving me the floor. Good morning, everybody. Very much welcome. You all on this webinar on land banking on behalf of the Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and we're very happy to see you on this important topic. The COVID crisis has really demonstrated that the vulnerability of the food systems and particularly are also food value chains and therefore also the economic, environmental and social dimension is really important to address. And as we know, the food system is a complex web of activities involving the production, processing, transport and consumption. So issues concerning the food system include governance and economics of food production, its sustainability, the degree to, for example, we waste food, our food production affects the natural environment and the impact of food on individuals and the population health. It has been widely agreed that due to this complexity and multidimensionality of food systems, applying a food systems approach and making efforts to transform our food systems is a key accelerator to achieve the SDGs. So why do I talk about this on a webinar with land banking? So what has this to do with the topic and why is this topic so extremely important in that context? Recently, the CFS, so the Committee of World Food Security, has negotiated the voluntary guidelines of sustainable food systems and nutrition. And amongst one of the five main categories and related drivers, which impact the functionality of food systems and their ability to deliver also healthy diets is, of course, the land tenure. So land management, sustainable land management is a key element of the food system and the land management has economic, environmental and social dimensions. This has been also very clearly lied out in the voluntary guidelines on the responsible governance of tenure of land, fisheries and forests in the context of national food security. So the VGTTs as we call them clearly indicate the importance of access to land and land tenure rights. So land management instruments such as the land banking and then also land consolidation have, if they are applied in a cross-sectoral and in an integrated approach, strong potential to significantly contribute making the food systems more sustainable and therefore also a significant contribution to the poverty reduction in rural areas. So I think it's a clear contribution to the SDG1, reducing poverty as poverty in this case is clearly indicated and having a relation to the excess of land. But it's not only the poverty issue, it's also to increase productivity of agriculture and therefore has a clear linkage to the SDG2 zero hunger. I would also, and I'm not going to talk about all the SDGs which is going to contribute, but of course the SDG5 related to women's equal access to land is also really quite important here making the bridge in terms of land management, land banking instruments which really facilitate the access to land also for such specific groups. The COVID in 2020 has really further emphasized the need in many countries to strengthen also local food production to make the farm system also more competitive, improving the farm structure and utilizing for example also suitable agricultural land. We have several countries of the region where many hectares are still unutilized, so bringing them into production is probably also an effort which is the lessons learned out of the pandemic and supporting small holders, family farms and youth is of course one of the key priorities of FAO in the region. So the development of the small farms into commercial family farms is a key objective for the land consolidation work which we as organizations are facilitating in the region. The target use of land banking or land consolidation can really allow governments to provide access to additional land to the owners of small family farms and to the young farmers and so I'm very much welcome you to have a very intensive discussion today at this webinar on such an interesting dimension and an interesting instrument like land banking. So with this I wish you a very good discussion and a successful seminar. Thank you very much. Over to you Martin. Thank you very much Simon for setting the scene for the discussion. Let me now quickly introduce the program of the webinar and I will also give a quick technical introduction to European land banking instruments and the work of FAO in Europe and Central Asia and this technical area. We will have two panel discussions today and I will present the panel members before each panel. The first panel will focus on Western European experiences with land banking and also on the need for land banking in countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. After the first panel Thomas Vasinskas the main author will briefly present the main findings of the land banking study with focus on the key recommendations. We have shared in advance a document that is a brief version of the study report and we welcome your comments both in the chat and by email to Thomas by the end of the day the email address to Thomas is in the brief document and we also write it again in the chat. After the introduction by Thomas we will have a second panel which will focus on the suggested key recommendations in the study. We will begin the second panel with one round of pre-prepared questions to the panel members but the rest of the discussion will be based on the questions and comments that the U.S. and audience will provide us with. So please use the Q&A function in Zoom to ask the questions that you would want me to ask to the panel members in the second panel. You are also invited to use the chat function in Zoom. Please use this for general post and also for the comments and suggested key recommendations related to the study and we aim to finish at 12 o'clock essentially European time today. This webinar is broadcasted live on the YouTube channel and the recorded video will also be available afterwards. Let me now quickly give a short technical introduction to land banking. Many countries in Western Europe have a long tradition for applying land banking instruments as part of an active land policy. Until a few decades ago around 1980s land banking was mainly an instrument to support agricultural development often combined with improvement of agricultural infrastructure and often implemented together with land consolidation projects. Today in most of the countries in Western Europe land banking has together with the land consolidation instruments in the same countries a multi-purpose objective supporting agricultural and rural development but also contributing to the implementation of public objectives and projects related to nature environment climate change adaptation and mitigation and also for large scale infrastructure. Now what does land banking mean in practice? There are different functions that we have identified based on the study. First we have the classical land banking function which is the acquisition and sale of parcels of agricultural land from and to private landowners. This is often combined with land consolidation where land banking can increase the land mobility in the land consolidation planning process and provide also the land that is needed to enlarge farms and to take a cultural land out of production for dimension public purpose projects and to compensate the farmers in other land and not to destroy the farms that are affected by these projects. Second we have identified the land bank function that we call intermediation of these of a cultural land between the owners that are not using their land and active local farmers. Third function of land banking that we have identified based on the study is the active use of the public owned agricultural land again as part of an active land policy for example providing access to additional land to small family farms or to farms owned by young farmers. The fourth and final of the functions we have found is to integrate the privatization of state owned agricultural land again with the aim of contributing to public purpose objectives and this can then also be part of the function of a land bank. While several countries in central and east and Europe the western Balkans and in Caucasus have made good progress with land consolidation in the last decade until recently there was not much successful land banking. This has however changed the last couple of years and we see now a renewed interest in land banking instruments. FAO is now either implementing or preparing projects with land banking elements in countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Turkey and we will hear about some of these experiences in these countries in in their first panel after my introduction. The need for land banking in these countries is driven either by a need to support the introduction of land consolidation, building up operational national land consolidation programs or by a political wish to combat excessive land abandonment. In countries such as Armenia and North Macedonia more than one third of all arable and cultural land is unutilized at the moment and some of these countries they have both of these two drivers at the same time. Land banking can be an important and efficient instrument in the land management policy toolbox with functions depending on the local needs and priorities. Now with this technical introduction let us move to our first panel discussion on the potential of land banking in Eastern Europe and Central Asia based on Western European good practice. In this panel we will have with us five panel members. We will have Frank van Hals, Frank is the program manager of the RBO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. We have Luike Gégousseau from Safer in France. We have Katja Delz, head of international department of the BBVG in Germany. We have Métin Türke, deputy director general at ministry of agriculture and forestry in Turkey and we have finally Rahela Niservic, head of department in the ministry of agriculture, forestry and water management in Montenegro. Now let me begin by turning to first to the Netherlands country with a long land banking tradition. Frank how is land banking applied in the Netherlands and what are the objectives and how is it linked with other land management instruments? Good morning Martin thank you and good morning to all our participants. I've seen many familiar names in the attendee list so that's always nice to see you or to witness you. I will briefly discuss a model of land banking performed for a very long time in the Netherlands and executed by BBL, the National Land Bank. I think that this model is the most relevant for this broader group. Land banking in the Netherlands supports multi-purpose objectives like agricultural restructuring, improvement of water management, nature protection, outdoor recreation, let's say the broad integrated approach as we have discussed for many times in the land net and we land banking supports this kind of integrated projects on a project basis. So right from the moment that a project is identified and even before the preparation is started the land bank will start to be operational on the land market and buy land which is available in that project area and build up a stock of land to be used later on in the project itself. For example, by widening a road, for making a buffer zone for nature protection, for the actual process of facilitating the exchange of parcels but also to enlarge farms. So the land bank buys, it temporarily manages and it sells as part of the land reallotment plan. The function is executed by the organization who also executed the land consolidation program. So these lines were very short and even the director of the land consolidation service was the director of the land bank but there was a separate legal entity for the land acquisition. So fully integrated in the land consolidation organization but with a separate legal entity for land transactions. It functioned in a way that we had many people in the field being active, let's say, of buying and evaluating and closing transactions guided by personnel in the office with dedicated staff, let's say, who know about land banking and know about land markets and land acquisitions. And whenever in a project area we could buy land, we would do that if we thought it would be a good land to buy. Up to one million could be decided by the director of the service enlarged and not had to be approved by the ministry. There was a supervising board of the land bank which is also very broad with several ministries in it and also the umbrella organizations for nature protection, for water management, for outdoor recreation. So a very broad supervision board. Each year the land bank would make a monitoring report where you could see what land was bought and sold and whether it did not distort the market prices. So all the transactions of the land bank were compared by the other transaction in the particular area. Sometimes it could go up to 25% of the transactions in rural areas where the land bank was involved so that that mechanism was very important.  So no other budget then available from from selling parcels, selling, buying, selling, buying was the mechanism of the land bank. I think my time is done so back to Morten. Thank you very much Frank. Yeah, Frank explained quite well how land banking is applied in the Netherlands. Now I will turn to Franz, a country with a unique regulation of the cultural land market and please let's try to keep it to three minutes in this first round. Louis, how in brief is land banking applied in France in the context of land market regulation and how has it been linked with agriculture and world development? Thank you Morten. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain how things work in France. French land banking has been implemented by SAFR since the 1960s and from the very beginning it has been linked to land market regulation. So I'll try to explain how what is the French regulation of land markets and then we'll see what how land banking works. So the French regulation can be divided into three steps, transparency, control and allocation. The main aim, the two main aims of this regulation is to keep prices connected to an economic reality and prevent speculation and the broader objective is to guarantee access to land in favor of employment, diversity of productions, added value, protection of environment within our rural territories in France. In that matter SAFR acts for agriculture but also more widely for rural development as a whole. The three steps of the French regulation of land markets have already said them. The first one is transparency that is to say the knowledge of sales of rural real estate and share deals. There is a legal obligation for notaries to give this information to SAFR. This very first step allows the second one which is control that is to set the capacity for SAFR to stop a certain kind of sales through our prevention rights. Based on legal motives, for instance, if a sale is concluded with a price considered too high in comparison with prices in the local area, SAFR can stop the price or buy the land to a lower price if the seller agrees. And the third step of French regulation is allocation that is to say the distribution of land towards projects in compliance with public policies. And we can implement this through either land banking or at least intermediation. So how do we do land banking in France? As you said, it's very common to other countries. First, SAFR can buy land. Last year, for instance, they bought 100,000 hectares which is roughly 25% of what they could have bought on the last year's market. Then SAFR can store land. Currently, we have 40,000 hectares in stock. This enables SAFR to wait, for instance, for a farmer to complete his education before he is sold the land. And then we sell the land. Sorry, there is a public enhancement. The price is made according to local references. And the candidate is chosen through criteria which must comply with criteria of public policies. And who makes the choice? It's representative from the whole world, farmers' unions, local authorities, environment protection unions, banks, and so on. And so we act for agriculture, for instance, last year we settled 1,400 young farmers. A lot of them were not from an agriculture background. So I'll try and keep it short and be able to answer your questions if you wish. Thank you. Thank you very much for sharing the interest in French experiences, Louis. Now the situation in the eastern part of Germany in relation to land management and privatisation of state-owned and cultural land is very specific and in some ways similar to some of the countries in Eastern Europe where also a substantial share of cultural land is still owned by the state. Katja, let me turn to you. What is the policy behind the privatisation of state and cultural land and the development of the cultural land market in the eastern part of Germany? Thank you, Morten, for giving me the floor. Hi to everyone. I remember we talked about land banking in a workshop in Tunder in 2004. That's quite a long while ago and we still talk about land banking. This shows how important the issue is. I will try to make a long story short. Morten mentioned the situation in Germany regarding privatisation of state-owned land is related to the history of Germany, to reunification and the situation after 1990 in East Germany. We had a big stock of state-owned land which then was meant to be brought back into private hands. That was the policy. This happened in three steps. First a leasing phase, then a land purchase programme to reduce prices and then selling the remaining land at market value. The leasing phase was more or less a phase that gave Germany the chance to develop what policy aims actually were supposed to be pursued with the privatisation and to keep the agricultural sector in eastern Germany running at the same time, to prevent the sector of breaking down. That worked quite well. If we talk about the main policy, we have to look at the second phase, which is the land purchase programme I mentioned, based on the Indemnification and Compensation Act that was released in Germany. The aim of that law first was actually an objective of justice to allow former owners to buy back their land at reduced prices or their former land, parts of their former land at reduced prices. At the same time, to give East German citizens who wanted to get engaged in farming the possibility to build up farm businesses. This land purchase programme was then widened because of EU objections. It had to be open for all lessees who held a long-term lease contract with BBVG. That was also one of the main objectives I would say we followed in this privatisation, led to a heterogenic ownership and farm structure in East Germany. We are now in the third phase where we sell off remaining land and I will come back to that also. If we talk about policy objectives, of course we are privatising since almost 30 years, new policy objectives actually came along. One was, for example, environmental objectives to keep some of the land in our portfolio as environmentally valuable in the public land stock. This land was then transferred from BBVG without charge to respective agencies that take care of these environmental lands on the federal state's level. If we come to the second question regarding what was the policy behind land market development, I would say that we were not really involved in policy-making of developing the land market but due to the fact that BBVG estate agency holding this large land stock and providing it step-by-step on the market, we were one of the biggest players on the market and that, of course, influenced and triggered land market development in the 90s and in the 2000s. We now have the discussion and that is quite recent that we see on the land market and Luike has just mentioned the topic that we have more and more land concentration in fewer hands and that is something where policy wants to regulate a little bit. This is the current discussion in Germany how this can be regulated and it influences us as BBVG by new regulations that have been agreed upon between federal states and the Federation to make, for example, the tender lots that we tender smaller and also to provide land through restricted tender to certain groups, for example, young farmers or labour-intensive farm enterprises. I think this is enough for the time being. I give back the word to Morten. Thank you. Thanks a lot, Katja. We have now heard the experiences briefly explained from the Netherlands, from France and from Germany and let me now turn to Metin Turka. Metin, you're the Deputy Director General in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Turkey. Turkey has the largest national land consolidation program in the region. What is the background for the strong interest of Turkey now also to develop a land banking instrument and what do you want to achieve with it? Please unmute Metin. He is now muted. Metin, you are muted. Yes. Thank you very much for this panel because this panel is very important for me and for my colleagues that we are working on land banking activities. But why we are insisting land banking? I would like to answer these questions, some figures. I think I suppose I will be selling cooperation in the Turkish agricultural sectors characteristics. Turkey is a height agricultural potential, 24 million hectares agricultural lands, 15 million hectares we have pasture grassland and at the same time two million hectares agricultural treasure lands that different lands types and these are managed different institutions, all of them are agricultural lands. We have three million agricultural holdings but can you hear me? Yes, we hear you now. What's happened? We heard the figures. Okay, okay. In other words, farm scale is small and ownership problems are high level. Because of over fragmentation, approximately two million hectares abandoned land because of over fragmentation. You know that we accelerated land consolidation projects after 2005. After that, we started to multi-propose and base and base land consolidation projects. In seven years, we had a good good land consolidation and multi-proposed land consolidation projects. Because our aim was to arrange fragmented, unshaped parcels and to provide for public investment such as irrigation projects, transportation projects, etc. in terms of multi-proposed land consolidation projects. Yes, we had a good pattern. We were successful in this implementation. But in 2010 or 2011, we recognized that only land consolidation project isn't a solution for farmers. That's why we have to find a new solutions like land banking and etc. Because these problems lead to another problems. For example, in rural area land, not enough for farmers. In 2014, we decided by selling some below the norm land. We calculated un-divisible lands, city-based, and from now on in 2014, fragmentation by inheritance was forbidden. Okay, good. But what we will do next steps? In accordance to latest data, 1.6 million hectares agricultural land have been prevented from being fragmented by inheritance and selling. Good. What will we do from now on? We need new implementations. In fact, some rules is related to land banking in law. Okay, but it is not sufficient. Because in the current law, everything is based on voluntary incentives and sanctions and new management monetary financials arguments are not sufficient. Land sales take place in the free market. But small fragmented and problematic lands are not solved. Nobody wants to buy these parcels. We couldn't realize land banking implementation completely. We know it is not easy. Then we focused on new solutions. For example, transfer of property rights to actual users couldn't be achieved adequately due to legal, financial, and administrative deficiencies. Unfortunately, we haven't been successful in the application until today. Yes, we are making something but it isn't enough. We have to establish a new system. We have to be realized new instruments under the land banking systems. We will come back to what you plan to do more in detail in the next question. For me, this is a very interesting example. We see from Turkey where we have both of the two drivers that I mentioned in the introduction. We have the need to support the land consolidation. The land banking will allow to enlarge the farms, which is also the objective of the government in Turkey, that the farms will become bigger and more competitive. At the same time, it also has the objective of bringing abandoned land back into production. So we have both the drivers at the same time in Turkey. Let me now turn to Montenegro. Rahela, you represent the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management and FAO is currently supporting Montenegro with improved the management of the state and cultural land. How do you see that the active management of state land in the future can contribute to cultural and world development and better provide access to land, small farms, young farmers, or to other target groups? Thank you, Morten. I would also like to thank FAO for inviting me to take part in this webinar today, and I would like to greet all the participants. In 1992, Montenegro adopted the law on agricultural land with provisions for land consolidation. However, a land consolidation program was never introduced. The Ministry of Agriculture for Forestry and Water Management is looking for a possibility to revise this law or adopt a new law, which is considered obsolete and no longer corresponding to realities. Particularly, broader policy and the institutional framework governing land domain require better alignment with the development goals and strategic objectives of the government. Excessive fragmentation of both land ownership and land use exists, and it's related to the farm structure prior to the Second World War, which still exists to a larger degree, particularly fragmented parcels, rather than as a result of the restitution process here in Montenegro. Active management of the state land will enable creation of mechanisms that would assist small agricultural holdings to grow and expand the possibility of their association and joint action, which will, as previously mentioned, enable them to be more competitive on the agricultural market. Responsible, systematic approach to land issue will continue investments in the development of villages, especially to continue activities of infrastructure construction in rural areas. It is also important to mention how it can affect academia. Academia shall provide more in-depth research on integrated land use planning, both urban and rural, and academia shall carry out research and comparative analysis of land governments, which would be much appreciated. Also, a graduate course in land management shall need to be developed, which is not present right now. Active management of the state land in the future will depend on improved land policies, complementing broader development goals, and programmatic implementation of land management instruments, facilitating improvement of farm structures, enhances livelihoods, and rural development. As you have previously mentioned, I wanted also to note that which is important to mention that FAO is assisting Montenegro here with an ongoing project supporting development of land policy and land management instruments in support of small holders whose conclusions and recommendations we shall see in the upcoming year when the project is about to be finished in 2021. Thank you. Thank you very much, Rahela. And now let's move into the second round with the first panel. And please, if you could try to be a little bit shorter in your answers in the second round. Let me come back to you, Frank. How do you see, with your experience from working on introduction of both land consolidation and land banking instruments in the western Balkans and the Caucasus countries, how do you see the potential for land banking in these countries? In general. Well, I see a great need for land banking, a great potential, but also huge challenges. And well, let's start with the need. To be honest, I can't, in many countries, I can't imagine how the issue of farm structures could be solved without a land bank, because if we talk about Armenia, for example, 1.48 hectares average farm size, if we talk about North Macedonia, 1.5 hectares average farm size. And well, these are quite extreme figures. And without, let's say, major increase on land mobility, these problems will not be solved. We can solve with land consolidation, as Matin says, you can solve the internal structure of the farms, but you cannot, you will not automatically enlarge farms. And I think that's the huge challenge. And that's the powerful combination of the two, land consolidation and land banking. You can both solve the internal fragmentation and start to enlarge farms. There's also potential in the fact that in quite some countries, there's still a lot of state land available. So these could maybe be moved to a more dynamic land bank than being managed as a state reserve. So there's also potential there. I think the huge challenge is the organizational part. I have been involved in interventions in, for example, Lithuania, in Croatia. Also, we've seen developers in Hungary at the time that when you start talking about a land bank, people start to talk about huge organizations. And the organizational discussion comes first instead of the functional discussion. So maybe we should try to introduce land banking in another way and build this up very gradually and start in a few land consolidation projects to appoint staff with the typical task of doing the land banking, arrange minimal legal arrangements in the law so that you can do this. So land can be handed over from the state reserve to the land bank and start from that part to work gradually and build up at the end organization, which will do the land banking, but not start a discussion from the other way around what organization do we need. Okay, I'll try to keep it short. So back to Morten. Thanks a lot, Frank. Now, Luik, in France, you practice also the variation of land banking that we call lease mediation. Could you please let us know what is the objective of the lease mediation instrument that you practice and how is it actually functioning? Yes. So before getting into proper lease intermediation, I would like to stress two other mechanisms implemented by SAFER. The first one is there was a question in the chat. It's the possibility for SAFER to lease the land they own in their stock during the five-year period of possible ownership by SAFER. SAFER can rent this land through temporary lease contracts. And this mechanism makes it possible for a tenant, which is selected after public announcement to take care of the parcels and preserve the quality until they're eventually sold by SAFER. So that's the first mechanism, very short-term lease within the land banking process. The second mechanism is also a short-term mechanism implemented by SAFER. But it concerns lands which remains property of private or public owners. It's not land owned by SAFER. It's property of public or private owners. A contract is signed between an owner and a SAFER. And then there is a lease signed between SAFER and a tenant after public announcement. So why do we do this? I will give you two examples. For instance, if a private owner loses his farmer, because for instance he retires, he can ask SAFER to find a farmer because maybe he would try to find a new farmer, or maybe he would like to sell his land in its time. So while he thinks about his project, he can ask SAFER to find a farmer. So that's for private owners and for public owners, for instance, there can be local authorities who stock land because they have this project of housings. So before this project is eventually done, the local authority can ask SAFER to find a farmer. So the land is formed and agriculture can be done on this land until the project of housings is executed. But in both cases, private or public, this land remains property of these owners. And the third mechanism, which is a very long-term leases. This is what we call proper lease intermediation. SAFER does not sign leases with tenants, but merely makes an owner and a tenant meet. So how does this work and try to keep it short? Why do we do this? This mechanism is very, very useful to facilitate the transmission of farms as a whole. Because mainly in the north of France, a farmer owns part of the land, but he rents the other parts of the land. So when he retires, he wants to transmit the whole farm. He will sell his part, but on the part which he rents, he doesn't have the main control. So that's what we do, what SAFER do. The living farmer will ask SAFER to find a new farmer. And the SAFER will find a farmer after public announcement, but will also contact the owner or the several owners of the farmer so that they agree to sign a new lease or new leases to the new farmer. So there is really this intermediation so that the seller, the farmer which retires, can sell the whole farm. The new farmer receives the very same farm as the former farmer, which is viable. And the owners sign new deals because they don't want to sell their land, they want to keep leasing the land, and so they keep receiving the rent. So this is very, very useful and try to keep it short. This is very useful in France because like in many other countries, there is a wave of farmers who will retire in the next 10 years. So there is a real need for the farm to keep the farms as a whole and to be transmitted and to be able to settle young farmers. Thank you. Thank you very much, Louis. Katja, in East Germany, you are at the same time applying a number of different programs related to land privatisation and land management. And I saw some questions in the chat also around this, but could you tell us what is the linkage between the land privatisation process where BVG is the responsible public agency and the land management instrument, such as land banking and land consolidation, applied by the German lands? And please try to keep it a bit short. I try my best. Thank you, Morten. Yes, maybe difficult to understand, BVG holds federal assets on the federal level. And then again, due to the federal structure we have in Germany, we also have agencies that are responsible for land issues on the federal states level. And they are actually the agencies that maybe in your respect with them sort of take over the assignments regarding land banking because they actually also purchase land, lease outland in order to improve the agricultural structure in the federal states. They are also involved in infrastructure projects and land consolidation. So these are two different assignments we are talking about. And on federal level, if we come to privatisation, we do it the way I mentioned before. The linkages are, there are a few linkages in terms of not working together, but how we are actually linked to the land agencies. One is that BVG as sort of in, for example, in land consolidation projects in the federal states, BVG, if it holds land in the respective area, takes part in the procedures just as every private landowner does. But there's one link, there's another linkage we have that is the assignment of the land agencies in the federal states have. They implement the so-called land law on land turnover, which means that they can execute a pre-emption right on behalf of the federal states. When, for example, there is a farmer in need for additional land, then they execute this preemption right by stepping into a contract. Also, for example, a contract that BVG has negotiated with a private buyer, they step into this contract at the same price and buy the land and then resell it to the farmer. So this is sort of an instrument the federal states have, and that also influences then contracts BVG has negotiated. One more thing, the federal states agency, the land agencies, they have bought land from BVG out of its portfolio to use it in order to implement the water framework directive of the EU. So this is the interlinkage, but this land was not transferred for free, but the federal states had to buy it. This is due to the federal structure that we have in Germany. Thank you. Thank you very much, Katja. Now, Mircin, let me come back to Turkey. You have plans to quickly scale up the land banking instrument that is still under development to a countrywide approach. How do you plan to finance it and how do you plan to institutionally organize land banking activities? And please try to be brief. Thank you. You are muted. Please unmute. Okay. In order to solve land banking problems, activities problems, one of them is the monetary finance problems. By means of land banking implementation, we all aim is to solve property problems, to expand the scale of farm, to carry out land consolidation projects, to rent, to lend or to lease the abandoned land and to evaluate agricultural etc. These activities, for these activities, we need finance. Nowadays, we are working on new land banking legislation, draft legislation, and it is ready. At the same time, we are working on banking activities, credit or finance models. Different financing tools have been proposed in the new land banking draft study. These are allocation from the general budget. Very important because you have to fulfill land consolidation project, for example. Other profit to be obtained from the revolving fund activities. Another finance research commission fee from the sale and rentals, maybe, donations, incomes from the stocks, land sales, and we are considering that maybe we can offer 40% of all treasure lands to sale and lease these incomes, maybe. In fact, land banking activities and financing can be classified three groups. First is financing of public investment. For these investments, should be financed by the state. Second group related to institutional financing. Institution needs some finance, personal, welding, equipment, etc. These expenses should be taken from the general budget and some of them should be taken from the activities, maybe. We should discuss the last model, maybe, financing of beneficiaries and landowners. Incentive and support budget should be determined in the participatory management. We are working on these models. Thank you very much, Metin. We have heard how the countries have good experiences with land banking, including with land management instruments, including with land banking.  How do you hope to see the development in Montenegro related to improved land management in the next 10 years? Thank you. In order to have improved land management and land banking as well, I hope that the current legal and institutional framework governing land domain will be revised much sooner than in 10 years time, and that Montenegro will have clearly defined and organized, as Frank mentioned, authority responsible for the management of agricultural land and state ownership, including municipalities, which would be a ministry of agriculture forestry and water management, which shall be responsible for land management instruments. Also, given the characteristics and importance of agricultural land for the development of our national economy, this legal framework should be separated from other land in state ownership. That implies that all procedures above all, sale and lease procedures of agricultural land, should be regulated by a specific law, which I mentioned in my previous talking. This development will spur and support the development of growing small holders and family farms. Furthermore, I hope that in 10 years time, we will see digitalization of agriculture be more present and used. In the domain of land management, this can fasten and enhance procedures we have today and improve monitoring of lease land. This will lead to better monitoring whether the agricultural production on public soil is sustainably used, and we can follow up on the ecological balance not to be harmed and prevent degradation of soil. Among other important benefits, digitalization of agricultural production will address mismanagement of agricultural soil, as I mentioned, with inadequate crop cultivation or fertilization, diminished productivity rates, degradation and soil erosion. The integration of information and communication technologies in agricultural production today for us plays a key role in the development of sustainable agriculture industry. Anyhow, it's necessary for us to aspire and establish a separate record in the possible future that would contain only data referring to agricultural land in state ownership, and that is something that we are actively doing even today. I think it's necessary to continue and aspire, create such a system of keeping records that within each moment provide accurate data concerning all characteristics of agricultural land in terms of location, size, culture and value, and that would ease and enable us to implement more organized land banking methods. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rahela, and also let me thank all of the panelists in the first panel for this very interesting discussion. Thanks a lot. Now we move to the presentation of the findings from the study. I will invite Thomas Vasinskas to briefly present the main findings of the FAO study on good European land banking practices and in particular highlight the main policy recommendations related to land banking. We have an advance shared with all of you the brief document that we have prepared as the basis for the discussion today and we have also shared a link to the document now in the chat. If you have comments both to the presentation of Thomas or to the suggested key recommendations in the brief, then please write them now in the chat or send them to Thomas by email by the end of today. And as I mentioned in the introduction, the email address is in the brief document. And finally, and this is important, if you have questions to Thomas and the other members of the second panel, then please write them in the Q&A function in Zoom now or while Thomas is presenting. This will be then used as the basis for the discussion that we will have in the second panel. Thomas, the floor is yours. Thank you, Morten. Hello, everyone. I will immediately share my screen. Time is short. I was given 15 minutes, so I will try to do it in a record time of 12 minutes, but let's let us see. So thank you for having me here. And it's my pleasure to discuss now about land banking with so many experts in the field. And especially that I also see people from countries we have worked in and starting from from the west to the east. And I think I would like to start this presentation by recalling that recently the FAO has presented the land consolidation guide. And now it's for me, it's a connecting of dots. And now we move to land banking. And all this comes from actually from practice that we have experienced in countries, in FAO program countries, and in the countries that we work in, even in my own country, Lithuania, where I am from. So I am Thomas Vyshinskas. And I would like to present to you now the key findings of the study and focus on the recommendation for the study on land banking. And as you can see here, here's my screen. Please switch to the full screen mode. So that the participants can better see the slides. Thanks a lot. It's perfect now. Thanks. So actually this comes, as I have mentioned, from the practice in the field. We saw with land consolidation that there was a lack of a comprehensive document that we could share with country representatives. And actually it was a feeling that the information is scattered in different documents and it is difficult to work without a clear understanding what land consolidation is and what land banking is. So I think about land banking is there is even less information available. So we tried to map the situation in Western Europe and Central Europe and see how these best practices could be applied in FAO program countries. And the objective of the study, it's defined here in nice words. But as I have mentioned, we see a need actually to, in order to share information and spread it, we see a need to first have a comprehensive document which would, where people could consult about the best practices and see what would be the feasibility adoption in their respective country. Because as we could see from the practice of Central European countries that Morton has mentioned, it's not the very easy way and a very easy way to implement this instrument immediately. So as to the methodology, this study started with a desk research and we had to perform consultations for the key persons in all the analyzed countries. And we have analyzed countries in Western Europe to identify the best practice of land banking and also we have covered some of the Central European countries to see what we have the advancements in land banking, namely in Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Croatia. And as from the Western part of Europe, we have analyzed Denmark, France, Germany, Mecklenburg for former land and the Netherlands and Spain, Galicia. So we have, now we will have hopefully the feedback and also I would like to thank immediately those who have already provided feedback on the brief that we have distributed. So your comments will be taken into account and the study will be finalized. As Morton has already mentioned, there's even no need to say that land banking is widely used in Western Europe and with a wave of land consolidation coming to Central Europe, it was hoped that land banking will come along. But strangely, this didn't happen and we will see some root causes of that later on. So what we also identified is that different land banking functions are applied by different land banks in different countries. As Morton has enumerated these functions, some countries focus on lease intermediation, some countries focus on purchase and sale and management inter-management of agricultural land, while as we could see some countries combine these instruments in one, as was explained in France for example. So this set of instruments should be chosen by a country taking into account their respective situation. And now in the countries where we work we see the situation is different and the relevant tools should be selected. So unfortunately what we can see, this land banking instrument didn't follow land consolidation that easily into Central Europe. And what we can see is that there was the main deficiency while it didn't perform. It was a lack of clear and sustainable policy and political support for that. Of course agricultural land is one of the fundamental resources. So no wonder that it is, well, land banking involves certain risks and respective safeguards should be adopted. But apparently it was a lack of support on a political level because on a technical level some of the Central European countries, like Lithuania for example, I think are one step from launching it through land banking but the step should be done. Yes, yet to come. So the need for land banking in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as Morten has already mentioned, we saw while communicating with representatives of these countries that there is a renewed interest and understanding that land consolidation should be combined with other instruments and namely land banking. And also this land banking would support land consolidation and also allow combat excessive land abandonment. So as a result of a study and also combining the results of a study with our land consolidation guides, this chapter on land banking, we suggested a definition of land banking because if you Google now and for land banking you will find a bunch of different concepts, what could be considered as land banking. So here we tried to define that this is a purely public purpose instrument with a systematic approach and applied by a public institution, having public objectives, etc. So and for trying to attain these objectives that were identified by Morten as well since we move from pure agricultural development to a broader scope, a multi-purpose instrument. So you are very welcome to comment on the definition, provide the comments, send to my email which is indicated in my presentation as well. All your remarks are welcome and we will take into account the ideas to suggest. So of course we definitely have to know why we apply this land banking and what type of objectives it would help us to attain and to aim and these were illuminated by Morten as well. And as to the functions of the land banks, we have identified, as Morten has already mentioned in his introductory speech, these two key instruments, two key functions that afterwards are followed or maybe followed by some accessory functions which you would be able to read about in more detail in the study document itself, but of course the key instrument is that which is a position in intermediary management and sale or exchange of land. And the second one is facilitation of lease of agricultural land. And then we have accessory functions like active management of a state owned land to support relevant policies like young farmers for example. And of course we hardly imagine not having a link between land banking, land consolidation and the state owned land privatization. So these should be interconnected. We also have identified some criteria, some concepts that we would like to recommend. One of them is this also comes from our experience of the work in the O-Program countries that it should be understood that land banking should be focused and focused on project areas, if we speak about opposition and intermediate management sale and exchange of land. Because we had some well suggestions that the state should buy here and there randomly the land, but it would not lead to a result, obviously since our resources are limited. And therefore we suggest at least in the beginning to clearly focus on intervention areas. While another core instrument which is lease intermediation, we consider that this could be applied on a scale of the whole country. And we could see it from Galician example in Spain for example, where you can access their website and see what land is available for lease etc. Also what we learned and this was I would say a key lesson from Galician Spain, that land banking should be driven by demand, it should be demand driven. For example, if this land management tool is applied and in 10 years, let's say there was a land consolidation project involving land banking, and in 10 years we can see that the land is abandoned again, that means that there was no demand for such a project. So this should be carefully evaluated before investing in it and beneficiaries should be also identified, public beneficiaries or private beneficiaries, so that no investment should be wasted. And as I have mentioned already, this integration with other land management tools or other tools like privatization or relevant instruments because if we apply them separately, this will give us a low effect. As regards the regulatory framework, we have identified that in most cases, land banking is not regulated by a separate law, as it is the case in many countries regarding land consolidation. So often land banking regulations are integrated in the specific laws like law on agricultural land for example, or law on land consolidation like in Denmark. And actually this will depend a lot on the form which was chosen, which is chosen selected by the country on the form of a land bank and institutional infrastructure as well, because we could see and this is presented in the study as well that the land bank may have different various legal forms like let's say starting ranging from the agency under the ministry and to the state enterprise etc. So of course depending on this legal form selected by the country, the regulatory framework will depend and we will see how for example the budgeting and activities of the functions of the land bank are regulated. So it will be one case if it's a state agency and another case if it's a state enterprise of course. And regarding the adoption of the legal framework, we always promote this model that once the legal framework is elaborated and adopted it should be tested in files and then amended it if necessary before scaling up land bank activities. And as regards the land bank itself, the key messages would be that actually land bank since it acts in the land market and other participants act in the land market it should be availed to take rapid decisions. Of course thresholds, certain thresholds should be in place which would limit powers probably of decision making of the land bank but these thresholds should be high and decisions could be made rapidly without a need for approval from the ministry or even from the government. So this should be a flexible and rapid mechanism to be able to act in the land market. And the land bank should have a revolving budget and not depend on a state budget every year so that it could reinvest the incomes from the land bank activities into the land bank activities again. Because the land bank may acquire land let's say when the situation is favorable in a certain area or in the country in the market and and not depend on this on a state budget which would be calculated each year. And of course a supervision and regulatory and a system of safeguards would be in place and supervision would be performed you know as by a relevant ministry like of the Ministry of Agriculture for example. To launch the activities of the land bank it should be provided of course with a startup assets. So either land or funds as Morgan has mentioned and other participants we have mentioned many countries still have a large resource of state owned land so why wouldn't such land be used as launching platform for a land bank activities. And in the very beginning of these activities at least at least the basic cost should be should be funded from state budget. Because of course it will not function on a self financing basis immediately although self financing should be as a target for land bank and this activity shouldn't then demand additional funding from the state budget unless there is a specific need for it. So thank you very much. I hope I was short enough please write to all your comments regarding the brief to this email. And I thank you in advance for your suggestions. Thank you Morten. Over to you. You are muted. Morten you are muted. Come here. Sorry for this. I hope you can hear me now. Thanks a lot Thomas for this presentation of the land banking study and its draft the key recommendations. This has now set scene for our second panel discussion I hope. And here we will focus on the study and on the key recommendations that it provides. Let me introduce the panel members that we will have in the second panel. First we will have Ramona. Ramona is representing the European Coordination Via Campesina and Eco Ruralis and Ramona is also a person from Romania so representing the civil society perspective. We also have with us Mariah Lopsma. Mariah is the chair of FIG Commission 8 and also representing Dutch Cadastra. We have Christina Mititsaatova. Christina is the team leader of the ongoing FAO mainland land consolidation project in North Macedonia. And finally Thomas Vasinskas will also be in the second panel to address questions from the audience. Let us begin with a quick round of questions to the panelists while we take your last questions so again please add them to the Q&A function that we have in Zoom and again comments and that's with the key recommendations in the chat. So I will begin with Ramona and you represent as I mentioned the civil society perspective. How do you see that we can support small family farms and young farmers with these land management instruments including the land banking that we have discussed today and what are the policy aspects in your view? Thank you so much Morten and thank you to all the team from FAO Reu for organizing this very important discussion on land issues which is very very timely and very important for us the small farmers of Europe. So I'm very happy to present to you our perspective and our reflection on our problems of accessing land but also on the proposal on the table for land banks. First of all it's important to note that the small farmers the small holders particularly the young peasant farmers who practice agricultural farming are facing extreme difficulties to access land. Our region is known to have the eldest farming population in the world and the lack of access to land for the young generation is a problem that poses at risk the actual future of farming in Europe so this is really a terrible problem. Despite having acknowledged this problem the support for accessing land for young farmers remains unfortunately a lip service paid at all levels by governments or by regional institutions. This structural problem is both the cause and the effect of an agriculture and public policies that put priority on trade and on international markets many times too many times by violating human rights and to the detriment of social factors which actually should be central in the food and agriculture domain. The problem of access to land for the young generation was built on historic inequalities that were massively ignored until now and that are being aggravated during this current crisis. It's a problem that was and continues to be addressed exclusively through pilot projects or through limited support measures for the benefit of very small numbers of farmers. The land regulation unfortunately remains blind to this desperate need to provide access to land for the younger generation of farmers and continues to maintain the status quo where the rich can have land while the poor cannot access to land without a comprehensive agrarian reform that engages the government from our entire region will actually not lead to a positive transformation for the food and agriculture sector. The lack of access to land for small young agroecological farmers is a phenomenon that affects as it was already said primarily Western Europe while in Eastern Europe we are also confronted we're facing land grabbing in various forms land grabbing that is driven by the private sector where financial institutions play a key role land grabbing that is facilitated by the states through land consolidation policies and lack of support for local communities while in Eastern Europe part we still have public land state managed land in Western Europe the land liberalization unfortunately concentrated the the land to very in very few hands leaving almost no options for the young or new entrants and so projects like land banks appear to be a solution based on our experience of small farmers we believe that land banking should only be public and should be done with full consultation and involvement of small farmers and for their benefit. In Eastern Europe through the public land that remained in the administration of the state after the fall of the communist regime this public land has been largely concessioned to a large industrial farm so we are reluctant to land bank projects without having clear transparent rules that prioritize and support small farmers and local communities. Eastern European states have unfortunately also not a very good reputation in upholding real social interest and they tend to give into vestige interest of agribusiness lobby and corruption and ultimately public land banking as it as it is organized today have has massively led to land concentration and has shut down many small family farms. We cannot stress enough the fact that land banking should be very transparent and should be very democratic for example in my country Romania this year the Romanian government amended the agricultural land market policy to facilitate theoretically public land access to young farmers this new measure needs to be observed in practice because most of the land the public land is locked into industrial mega farms due to the long-term leases and in order to have an impact in the real life this new measure needs to be backed by complementary measures that limit the access of the corporations to land and that offer support for small holders to access not only land but also other natural resources means of production and most importantly the market. I would like to refer briefly to the VGGT which clearly states that states should refrain from using land consolidation where fragmentation provides benefits such as risk reduction of or crop diversification. This is especially important in the times of the current covid crisis. This crisis has dramatically affected the peasant rural communities because it limited our dialogue with the authorities. It gives us limitation to access to information because of the digital communication that is being promoted right now. It has deepened the poverty and inequalities. It has deepened the social division caused by political divide between left and right political ideologies and the acceleration of the corporate agenda for digitalization and international trade has been extremely problematic for us. We need to be extremely cautious when we promote digitalization in the food and agriculture sector because we're leaving small farmers behind and this is not what the small farmers need. Digitalization driven by corporation can also be antisocial because it's meant for profit and it proposes to replace people with machines and with software. So VGGT gives us clear guidance that where appropriate states may consider the establishment of land banks as part of land consolidation programs to acquire and temporarily hold land parcels until they are allocated to beneficiaries. So we believe that in terms of sequencing of the process small farmers should come first until small farmers and young farmers are not clearly identified in policy methodology as main and primary beneficiaries targeted by public land banks. It is premature to promote land consolidation and land banking as a viable solution. We also have other instruments like the UN declaration for the rights of peasants which provides us very useful stipulation in article 17 which speaks about the right to land for small farmers for peasants. We also have the UN decade for family farming which provides us across the board with very very useful guidance on how to support access to land for small farmers for young farmers particularly but for us in conclusion the minimum requirements for respecting the local communities and for respecting the peasants right to land by countries and by projects that support access to land. We need to have a clear overall land policy which includes strategic vision for the future of agriculture that is created with the participation of the rural communities with the participation of small family farms peasants and people working in rural areas. We need transparent and inclusive legislative processes with focus on the right holders. We need priority for young and small family farmers when state land is leased out or when it's transferred in other forms. We need a transparent land market information system that is accessible for rural communities. We need to avoid speculation in agriculture land. We need to limit the options for large corporate farms to own agriculture land and we need clear rules against conflicts of interest that limit corruption and the influence of the corporate sector. Thank you so much. Thank you very much Ramona for these important points and I see also from the questions that we are receiving that we will come back to some of these topics in the next round of discussion. Let me now turn to Mariah from the perspective of the land tenure professionals in FIG. How do you see the main challenges of building up capacity for land banking and for the other land management instruments as well? Well thank you Morten. Well I think it's a highly specialized field of expertise and land policy is a complex discipline that requires knowledge from the land market, governance, institutions, financial arrangements, legislation, tenure systems and real estate among others and also knowledge about the land policy instruments like land banking, land exchange, preemption rights or expropriation is needed and one need to be able to select the appropriate instrument or set of instruments that fit the aim. Land acquisition for example for infrastructure might require a different approach than strengthening the agricultural sector by optimizing the allocation of land so each instrument has its own advantages and preconditions for successful employment and due to the specialized nature it is important to build sufficient capacity for land banking but also for the whole discipline of land policy and its instruments. Overall land banking relies on wealth functioning land markets, the presence of institutions that can implement land banking policies and the framework of group governance principles. Well actually as the previous speaker has touched the bomb. So let me explain this with an example. A land bank can only buy land if sufficient transactions take place on the land market without enough land being offered for sale it is easy to disturb the land market by outcompeting local landowners or to drive up prices so it is essential to have knowledge about the local land market to be able to determine an acquisition strategy and assess the potential for land parcel for the purpose for which it is bought. Apart from knowledge about such local situations it is essential that land banking is supported by principles of good governance and reliable institutions that can implement the land banking strategy. However not all countries can rely on a long tradition in land policy and employing policy instruments so capacity still has to be built. Apart from that in countries where land policy and land banking has been applied there are differences in legislation rules and regulations and financial arrangements institutions principles of governance and tenure. So I would advise to to base capacity building on two pillars. First it is key to invest in education to build curricula and second to exchange experience to international networks like the FIG or land net and the UN. To learn from each other's land banking frameworks and mistakes and successes upon implementation that will enhance a better understanding of land banking and the conditions for an effective implementation and I think we have seen already quite some examples in the in the first panel that we can learn from so yeah and I will open the floor after this panel also for questions to grasp the opportunity to to learn more and exchange knowledge in this webinar. Thank you. Thank you Maraj. Now Kristina you are the team leader of the ongoing EU funded mainland project in North Macedonia where FAO is supporting the ministry of agricultural forestry and water economy to develop a fully operational national land consolidation program. How do you see the need for land banking in North Macedonia in support of land consolidation instrument and also the potential of land banking beyond the land consolidation. Thank you very much. I'm pleased to be part of this very interesting discussion. North Macedonia has come a long way since its independence with regard to shaping and improving the agricultural land policy. So in order to answer your question I will briefly mention some of the most important steps that were undertaken so far and how gradual introduction of different land management instruments has led us to the point where we currently stand on a on a country level. First, North Macedonia has undertaken improved steps to improve the property registers and introduced the process of land restitution. These two processes were implemented almost in parallel and after the finalization of land restitution the state still owns more than one third of the total agricultural land funds. Consequently actions were taken to improve the management of state owned land through introduction of instruments of long term lease for the for the active farmers. Finally land consolidation was introduced in 2012-13 and it was the process was piloted the instrument was piloted until 2007. This has led us ultimately to introduction of full-fledged nationwide land consolidation program which we are currently implementing together with the Ministry of Agriculture and you already mentioned FAO as a technical support and finances by the ensured by the European Union. While land consolidation in North Macedonia was introduced with mainly agricultural objectives we are currently piloting multi-purpose land consolidation in two active land consolidation projects and this process has led us to note the important role of the state owned land can have and should play should have in the land consolidation project. First of all acting as catalyzer to the realotment planning also very important for the implementation of multi-purpose land consolidation project and the potential the state owned land has to enlarge the private family farms. So FAO in parallel with supporting the land consolidation process has been also supporting the process of sale of privatization of the of the state owned land in a targeted way which would of course support the enlargement of small family farms and of the family farms and small holders. We expect that the integration of the land management instruments that I already mentioned like land consolidation, land state owned land privatization, long-term leasing under the umbrella of the of the national agricultural policy will to a great extent contribute to the land market development to combating land abandonment and empowerment of small holders. In parallel with the activities we already have in the in the country together with the national counterpart there are discussions on over the related issues within the government of North Macedonia particularly discussions regarding the establishment of integrated land management agency which will include land banking functions among other plant functions. To sum up together with the ministry of agriculture, forestry and water economy, other international partners as well we are really working hard to achieve an integrated balanced and well functioning land policy instruments including land banking to support the agricultural development and of course to support small holders and family farms in line with the objectives already set in the in the agricultural policy. More than I hope that I was brief enough to explain the effort going on in Macedonia and I'm here to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you Kristina and I think the experiences of North Macedonia illustrate very well the close relationship between the land banking and the land consolidation instruments. Now finally in this first round of the second panel let me turn to you Thomas as the main author of the land banking study. What would you say are the two key recommendations on land banking that we want to bring forward based on the study? Well first of all Martin I would like to thank you for giving me an opportunity to choose two and not just one single key recommendation. So in any case the first recommendation from my side it is not written in the brief or in the presentation but the feeling and the experience shows at least from my side that you cannot introduce land banking as a half instrument because either you have a range of functions a set of functions which would give an effect or you are you just probably wasting your time if you try to limit the land bank you know you establish a land bank and you do not provide the land bank with the relevant functions because state owned land and land itself is a resource with which involves a lot of you know interests and risks and everything so the safeguarding system should be in place etc but this is a very useful instrument so it would be a pity to waste it introducing it half introducing and half not introducing because this will not bring an effect and this will ruin the image of land banking itself. So this would be my first recommendation to elaborate carefully to select the set of instruments and to launch it and the second one is of course a systematic approach because I think it would be the best thing the best way to waste money if you do not do it in a systematic way because you know buying selling randomly will not achieve to to any public policy objectives so this has to be a systematic approach if we see a railway highway project coming and will be in place in in five years let us let us do land banking in this intervention or project area so it has to be combined with other instruments and with a careful planning so it would be useful then this would be the two that I would prefer thank you thank you Thomas I think these are two very good points first that we need to go all in if we want to do land banking or it does not have much purpose and second that no matter how much funding will be available for land banking there will never be enough to buy up randomly all around the countries so we need to focus on specific intervention areas where the instruments can really make a big difference at least if we talk about selling and buying while as we have discussed that also with the first panel the mediation of these instruments is let's say much more suitable for a countrywide immediate approach now with this we have received some interesting questions from the participants and I will try to ask as many of these as we have the time for in the 20 minutes that remain of the webinar today and I will begin with the first question that comes from Andrei Matang in Ukraine and he Andrei is asking if it's advisable to privatize public agricultural land free of charge or significantly significantly cheaper than the market value for small farmers and I think this could be a question where we could I would like to start to hear the opinion of Ramona and then the others could add your opinion as well and if you want to speak then please use the raise hand function in the zoom so I can give you the floor thank you so you invited me to respond yes please we as a peasant movement Via Campesina in Europe has been close to the problems of our brothers and sisters from Ukraine they are going through very big very big problems of land the liberalization that are claiming to be in the name of human rights the human rights to sell land and we have unfortunately witnessed how the land policies in Ukraine have been really been liberalized and there will be extremely big problems of access to land very very soon so we need to protect and prevent that this to protect the small farmers and to prevent that we create situations like in Western Europe where young farmers cannot access land because it's way too expensive because you have to pay 40,000 50,000 sometimes euros per hectare and these are resources that the young generation doesn't have we certainly need to protect the the interest of the young farmers because we need to still have agriculture we need to have a future in agriculture and we cannot allow that only the the rich who have resources to money can can access this extremely important resource for us the small holders land is not a commodity it's our basis of our livelihoods so we do believe that public policies need to change the paradigm need to shift the direction that we're heading towards now only supporting providing support for the international market and for profit and for trade and so on we need to protect the people who work who are active in agriculture we need to protect the rural communities we don't believe that land banks are going to fix the problem there can be an instrument a marginal instrument but we need to change the principles and we need to reprioritize who is important in the public policies in agriculture overall we need the comprehensive agrarian reforms where land banking can be included as instruments but land banks cannot be the heart the beating heart of how land will be managed from now on we believe that we need to redistribute resources and land cannot only be accessed by those who have money so yeah for us human rights are the main criteria that needs to be that public policies need to be based on and the priority for the young farmers for the women for the small farmers for those who practice agroecological farming because we need not only food but we need healthy food this this health crisis is showing us all the things we've been done wrong we need the we need the political will to to back the real solutions thank you thank you very much i think that the the use of land banks to as andre is suggesting to to privatize state-owned land with two specific target groups it could be small farms it could be farms owned of young farmers could be one of the instruments and we heard also in the first panel the east german experiences in in this area as well and opoland also had experiences with this selling land to specific target groups at a reduced price in as an alternative to auction it on the market so Thomas you have a short comment on this yes i i raised my hand in in zoo so just a short comment i i think i agree with Ramona's arguments and also would like to to say that apparently i should also have to be a safeguarding system just to ensure that this land which is privatized in a better condition so for a better price would not end up finally in the hands of for you know large landholders just you privatize the and then the land is resold you know so this this was a danger that i saw on an example from for example of the stock options where where the company distributes shares and then they are re resold to immediately to to the competitors so here here also there should be a certain safeguard that this land is used by the target target group of people at least for a limited period of time i don't know that you should do anyway thank you now here i could maybe mention that the the EU support measures under world development programs for example on early retirement they have linkages where this land is let's say blocked you cannot further sell it for five years after you have purchased it on such favorable conditions the same with land that is supported by the public funds through a land consolidation project you also have a let's say a a short the moratorium on on on those surpassals that participate so that could be one of the ways of dealing with this yeah thomas back to you yeah i fully agree with you because actually if if we do not provide for this safeguard then even through privatization the state budget will not receive the money and you know distribute the land for free or at a very low price that means not collect the funds and if there is no this safeguarding mechanism this land will be resold by private people then to you know other other groups of people of interest in people so i fully agree no it's important to avoid the speculation in land markets in general in any way it's very difficult to do in practice but i think we should all aim to try to get speculation out of the land market and let's say use the valuable resource for those who want to to farm and make a living out of it but i you want to comment this as well yes i have more as some suggestions in the same line as you mentioned already but i would like to emphasize that it would be good to have a distinction between the policy and the land banking instrument that is implementing the policy so if you would like to prioritize certain target groups like the young farmers or the small skilled farmers that you should have that laid down in policy and then the land banking is yeah it's your implementation of that policy and i also fully support the idea of having a specific clause in the land transaction document when you provide land at a reduced price for those targeted groups on the other hand you can also think of having a agricultural subsidy for young farmers instead of putting it in the reducing the land price having the normal land market price but then offer the young farmers a subsidy for which they can apply so then you separate the land banking with the agricultural policy and subsidy framework that will be perhaps a bit of a bit a bit better perhaps so that you can still have the normal liberal land market irrespective of the subsidy for the farmers so to say so you have the same effect i hope but in a different way organized no it can be supported in in in different ways for for sure um Christina you want to comment this as well uh yes thank you Morten i just want to to compliment what uh colleagues already already said uh the discussion we are having now is brings one important point uh into light this is why land management policy should be carefully set in line with the overall agricultural policy and each and every instrument used including land banking should be uh designed and then embedded in the legal framework in a way that supports the the policy objectives that are that are set so i fully agree privatization of the of the state on land right since this is the the current topic of discussion should be done in a targeted way with uh to achieve the goals set up set in the in the land in the overall agricultural policy of course this includes support to the young farmers to the small holders to the family farms in a ways that we can empower them and ensure that they could not only continue the agricultural production but also grow thank you very much now let's we do not have so much time left let's see if we can manage to have a couple of more questions we have an interesting question from Andrew Cartwright Andrew is asking about the abandoned land and that there is usually restoration costs to make the land more attractive i think some of us who participated in the land net the regional workshop in Galicia saw how in Galicia the the land is being cleaned for bushes that have overgrown this land that has been outside of utilization for some years we have also seen abandoned land in other countries like for example in Armenia where there are let's say rocks too big to farm the land in an efficient wave and normal machinery so the question from Andrew is if it's also the task of the land bank to let's say make the land attractive for for farming so investing in in this i don't know who would want to answer this maybe Thomas yeah thank you Andrew for this question and i think that both models are feasible and could be applied it depends on the situation and the policy that the land banking is is using as we could we could see for example my Galician colleagues could correct me if i'm wrong but as we as you mentioned more than we saw in Galicia that the land bank cleans the land from bushes but they they have contractual obligations with with the landowner so that the landowner lets this land to be incorporated into the Galician land bank and then later on least for a certain period of time so if if the landowner doesn't respect this obligation then he or she would have to cover the relevant costs of cleaning and also another another well i would say a possibility and what we see in theoretical theoretical on theoretical level for a moment in Lithuania is that the certain funds are located to to restructure and improve the abandoned land for example and to hopefully in the near future you sell it in the market so you know and of course there will be a difference in price between the abandoned land and non-structured land into when you sell the structured correctly structured and improved land in the market so you will have this margin buying and selling price you know so this is also a part of the financing mechanism for this transaction okay if there are no more comments on this question i think Christina you have a raised hand but i think is it for now or from before well it's from before but i can i want to add something to to to what Thomas just said the way we are converting land abandonment currently under the land consolidation program in north Macedonia is that during the land valuation initial land valuation in fact this land that is not into production he has let's say decreased agricultural production value which means that interested participants in land consolidation could get it without cleaning and clearing of of the whatever structure is is on it but they they could get a larger portion or a larger area through the land consolidation process and interestingly enough we have a lot of interested landowners for such lands since which are willing to clean or put the land back into into production on their own expense for let's say exchange getting a larger larger area so of course this is done in on a project level and we cannot say that this influence is the land abandonment on national level that much but again it is a mechanism where when with which we can put abandoned land back into into production through land consolidation thank you okay let's have one more question from the participants Hank Moon from the netherland is asking how can we involve a decentralization and i think this is also an important issue for example in large countries we talked about Spain Galicia where the land banking is organized at the level of Galicia but and and in principle land banks can function at the national level at a regional level or even at a local level i don't know if we have any opinions among the panelists on what should be let's say the priorities for countries that are introducing land banking instruments if i could say a word yes of course yeah thank you so i i think it very much depends on on the country you know on its structure and on the size of the country itself and i i do not see a big problem if it's this decentralized model but for me the key issue here would be two key issues would be here know how how to do land banking because even even if you do all these capacity building programs etc etc the number of people that you need to to actually implement these instruments must reach to a certain level so that the instrument starts to function in in a respective country because politicians change people who have this know how change etc etc so there there is a real capacity building issue for me but but in a large country a decentralized model i don't i don't see a very big problem with that and of course another another issue is a system of safeguards how do you ensure that you know local decentralized structures do not abuse the instrument itself and do not use it for their own benefit rather than for the benefit of general state policy so these are my remarks about that no these are good points thomas i think it's also our experiences from the projects that we are doing that the capacity development that is very much needed is the most difficult it's not to develop a good law or even make it operational that may take a couple of attempts but to really have sufficient capacity for the upscale of the activities from going from pilot projects to doing land banking or land consolidation which is similar in a much larger scale this really requires a lot of efforts and a lot of efforts of the government agencies that are involved in this as well yeah mariah you want to add a comment on this also yes i i would like to emphasize that having one institution responsible for land banking has certain advantages regarding accountability because you have one organization that can be held accountable you can also regarding capacity building you can learn from each other and a bit more people well you have more capacity to do than if you have like five decentralized land banking organizations however you can also combine it than having one institution but with local offices so because you also need of course to have the local knowledge about especially about the land market it's just not simply buying a parcel you need to know what the what the local land price is so you have to make informed decisions you need some basic information about the land market about the legislation and rules that apply etc so if you have one organization you can have for example one system you can exchange knowledge but still with local branches you can well you can have also access to the local market and knowledge about local issues so well there's solutions in different in different ways i would say we have many more good questions from the participants i think we have only time for one more quick question and i would pick the one that comes from miklos atila boros it was not mentioned from bits crunchy but the name sounds Hungarian i would this is about the how to that based on these experiences and observations of the speakers involved in the piloting of land banking and land consolidation who are who are then the final beneficiaries of these activities that is a question and there's also an additional comment saying that it's a valid worry that the social dynamics in farming completely changes after the implementation of such instruments and where i would say maybe this is the end or this is part of the intention we want to use these instruments to implement the public policy in this area but i don't know if any of the panelists would would have a comment on that i would not see this as a negative but actually as something positive Ramona you want to comment this yeah i would like to comment we we believe as small farmers as we are represent the majority of the people that are engaged in farming that are producing food that are feeding our countries our communities we believe that it's the majority this majority that needs to be the beneficiary of public policies on land we also believe that the land banking are instruments they're not ways of implementing land the public policies in general they're instruments that needs to start slow and that needs to start by consulting with the rural communities in every country in every region there is a different reality of course the main problems are the same but these instruments need to respond to the local realities in order to have a positive impact on the future we also believe that we because we're living a crisis these instruments need to respond to the crisis unfortunately the study does not include this element of of crisis this crisis has aggravated historic problems and has added problems that did not exist before so they need to be assessed they need to be and they can only be assessed by speaking with the people from the ground unfortunately there has not been enough time for the research to catch up with with the reality the times are being very difficult communication is very difficult so we need to give necessary time for this this assessment process and the dialogue we need to give the dialogue the importance that it has and we need to put the local communities at the center otherwise if you're if we're just building another problem through land banks and making the rich richer and making the agriculture more unhealthy than it already is and poisoning our environment more than it already is well this is a this is just another huge failure so caution uh putting putting the social elements first the people first and not the profit not the international market these are the important priorities that we see um for for any land policies and this the land policies need to be integrated uh in a in a broader land reform because I can obtain land through a land bank but if I have no access to market nothing uh nothing is really sold so um it needs to be integrated in in broader changes that are so necessary in uh in the food and agriculture sector thank you thank you very much Ramona I think that was a good place to end and we are kind of back to the the words that Raymond said in the introduction about the need to integrate and look at all these issues in in a holistic way and I think we have managed this also today not look at land banks or land consolidation as purely technical instruments but see them in the policy context that they should be seen in and that we use these instruments to pursue specific objectives that should be in the public interest so time is coming to end this webinar and I have very much enjoyed the discussion that we have had today and I hope that you who have followed it have done the same we have heard about the experiences for land banking from different western european countries and also about the need for the instruments in eastern europe we have discussed the key issues that are important for the finalization of the upcoming FAO study on land banking and its recommendation thanks for the comments and thanks for all of you who would send additional comments by email to Thomas as mentioned thanks a lot to the participants in the two panels for sharing your insight on land banking and for the interesting discussions also thanks to all of those of you who participated and who asked the questions to the second panel and provided the comments in the chat and we are welcome all these additional comments and suggestions as well until the end of the day so let me say that we will inform all of you when we will be ready to publish the land bank study report in the beginning of 2021 and as I already mentioned in the introduction the recording of the webinar today is available on youtube and will be further published and announced so finally I want to inform you that we are in addition to what we have discussed today and in addition to the study we are an FAO planning to organize in January an online survey about the application of land consolidation and land banking instruments in different countries countries our focus is of course on Europe since we are from the regional office for Europe and Central Asia but we would encourage everybody around the world to participate in this survey as well and filling in of the questionnaire will only take five minutes and I hope that we will be able to establish an overview that at least to my understanding nobody has had so far on the global application of these instruments and I think that could be very useful for the further discussion as well thank you very much and goodbye thank you