Capitalisation of government support in agricultural land prices in the Czech Republic

The recent implementation of the CAP Single Area Payments in the EU New Member States raises the question of whether a quick capitalisation of these payments is expected. Capitalisation of public support to agriculture into land prices indicates that the benefits are partly transferred toward landowners rather than toward producers. This distributional aspect is of particular importance in countries where a large proportion of land is farmed by producers who do not own this land. This study investigates the influence of several types of support on Czech agricultural land prices from private transactions between 1995-2001. The past period direct payments have been capitalised at the strongest rate, despite their low level and imperfections on the land market, suggesting that such support is most easily transferred to land values. A continuing capitalisation might threaten the farming activity, as farms are almost only tenanted. And because most of the landowners live in towns, there is a risk of an extreme leakage of support not only outside the farming sector, but also outside the rural sector.