At present, about 18,300 hectares per year of mainly low quality agricultural land transferred from the State Treasury Agricultural Property Agency to the State Forestry Management are afforested.
Private land is afforested on a small scale.
The main reason is that during consolidation programmes, new lots of land from the State are transferred to farmers in return for low quality agricultural land to be subsequently incorporated into existing forests. The Government plans to increase expenditure on afforestation and to introduce afforestation incentives for private landowners. To this end, the National Programme for afforestation will be supplemented with subsidies for farmers in line with EU Legislation. Amendments of the programme are being worked out jointly by the Ministry of Environmental Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Economy, in accordance with the priorities of the National Programme of Preparation for EU membership.