16.01.2008 Change of Agricultural Land Parcel Category Simplified

On December 7, 2007, Parliament of Georgia amended the Law on the Structure and Rule of Activities of the Executive Authorities of Georgia.  According to the amendments National Agency of Public Registry (NAPR), instead of the Ministry of Agriculture of Georgia, shall be entitled to change the category (arable land, pasture, hay-fields) of agricultural land parcels. As a result the process of agricultural land category change shall be simplified and the same body shall ensure to change both agricultural land status and category. As of today according to legislation of Georgia, in particular to the Law on Compensation of the Substitute Land Development Costs and Inflicted Damage in Allocating Agricultural Land for Non-Agricultural Purposes, NAPR is authorized to change the status of agricultural land into non-agricultural land (except agricultural lands within the borders of recreational territories, as well as within administrative borders of the cities of Tbilisi and Batumi, where the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of Georgia is responsible to change the land status).

Alexander Gvaramia, APLR legal analyst: amendments shall fill up the gap in legislation existing in Georgia during last three years. The State Department of Land Management, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, was authorized to change agricultural land category. However, there were a number of bureaucratic barriers impeding the process and usually it took rather a long time to change the land category. After the Department had been abolished, the said function was initially transferred to the Ministry of Environment Protection and Natural Resources and then to the Ministry of Agriculture. Because there was no any law or other legislative act regulating the said process in Georgia, in fact it was impossible to change agricultural land category that represented an obstacle to the development of some fields of agrarian sector.

After the adoption of mentioned legislative change, it will become possible to change agricultural land category in a short period of time under simplified rules. As of today NAPR owns information on agricultural land parcels existing in Georgia and is able todirect the process in an efficient way.