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pastures and 38% of forested land. Agricultural cooperatives (145) and sociallyowned ‘a(chǎn)grokombinats’ (18) control the remaining agricultural land (Kodderitzch amp。 Veillerette, 1999). Average private land holdings per family are about ha, incl uding ha of arable land, inefficiently fragmented into up to six plots. The typical subsistence farmer grows 1 ha of wheat and a similar area of maize in rotation. More than a quarter of the cultivable area (106,000 ha) was under irrigation, which led to the development of intensive cropping systems in the most fertile plains, but much irrigation is now unusable. Livestock production accounted for 50% of the value of agricultural production and in 1997 livestock numbers prised 420,000 cattle, 365,000 sheep, 69,000 pigs, 27,000 goats and million head of poultry. During the conflict most livestock was lost, stolen or killed and livestock numbers fell by over 50% to a total of 187,000 cow equivalents. The current total is 243,000 cow equivalents, indicating a 30% recovery. In addition there are 50,000 pigs largely within Serb enclaves and 700,000 laying fowls. Restocking with animals of improved geic potential is an urgent priority and provides a ‘onceforall’ opportunity to lift animal productivity. There is not a transparent, wellfunctioning land market with official, legal recording of land transactions. A rudimentary market is at work with land transactions taking place, and leasing and renting of private land is possible. The rent depends on land quality, irrigation facilities and type of crop planted. Annual rents were DM 50–150 per ha for wheat land and between DM 400 and DM 700 per ha for vegetable growing land with irrigation. An open and active land market is essential if Kosova is to move from subsistence to mercialised agriculture via land consolidation. According to an International Fertiliser Development Corporation (IFDC) survey, land prices of up to DM 100,000 per hectare are unrealistically high in relation to the levels of agricultural profitability (Hicks, 2020). Demand for land is fuelled by remittances from abroad and investment in land is made for nonagricultural reasons. Annual farm gross margins of less than DM 1500 per hectare cannot sustain such high land prices. Productivity Crop and livestock yields in Kosova are low. Average wheat yields of 3 tonnes per ha and milk yields of 1300 litres per cow pare unfavourably with farms in Western Europe of 8 tonnes per ha and 6000 litres of milk per cow. Croatia has an average wheat yield of tonnes per ha, the Czech Republic tonnes per ha. In 2020 Poland had an average milk yield of 3800 litres per cow, Hungary 5500 litres. Fertiliser usage is low with application rates of about 45 kg of the nutrients N, P and K per ha in contrast to 200 kg of nutrients per ha in Western Europe. Productivity fell in the 1990s due to Yugoslav government policy failures and years of neglect brought about by market distortions and socialist planning. High levels of trade protection, input subsidies, subsidised cre