Latvijas Lauksaimniecības universitātes raksti nr. 18 (313) , 2007 ...

N. Bastienė, V. Šaulys Maintenance and Financing of Land Drainage in LithuaniaFig. 3. Dependence of a farmer’s income from gross agricultural production (solid line) andcrop production (dashed line) on land productivity (Data from the Lithuanian Institute ofAgrarian Economics: Lietuvos žemės ..., 2005).35 points (marketable plant growing is payable onlyin regions where soil rating exceeds the mean value of39 points) (Lietuvos žemės …, 2005).Land reclamation practices aim at increasing thesoil productivity, however, drainage does not increasethe land quality equally. Drained soils with hypergleyicloamy or clayey texture (Hyperglei-Calcaric Gleysols)have got the highest evaluation – 24 points. The Calcari-Hypogleyic Luvisols and Calcari-Gleyic Cambisolswith sandy loam texture have been evaluated at 10-15 points after draining. Sandy soils with gleyzationfeatures after draining have improved only by 3 points(Juodis et al., 2001). The greatest increase in soilproductivity has been observed in middle Lithuania,where agricultural development is most intensive. Aproperly functioning drainage therefore is particularlyimportant for this region. Whereas land productivity inLithuania much depends on the water regime control(drainage), the financing for land drainage should beadjusted in respect of how much those means haveincreased the land productivity.Maintenance of drainage systems becomesproblematic and even useless if the land has no owneror lies fallow. Analyzing the rural developmenttendencies of the last years, it has been observed thatthe area of abandoned land is constantly increasing(Brusokaitė-Stravinskienė, 2002) and in differentmunicipalities varies from 0.2 to 17.9% (Lietuvosstatistikos …, 2003). Considering the fact that it isnot economically feasible to allocate funds for landdrainage in abandoned land, this parameter shouldbe regarded as one of the evaluation criteria whenallocating the budget subsidies.On the basis of these considerations, four possiblescenarios of reallocation of state subsidies for landdrainage are distinguished:scenario I – subsidies allocated considering theresidual value and depreciation of state-owned landdrainage structures in the territories of municipalities(base subsidies – F ( I ) );iscenario II – base subsidies adjusted according tothe increased land productivity due to water regimecontrol ( );scenario III – base subsidies adjusted accordingto the area of abandoned land in municipalities( F ( III ) );iscenario IV – base subsidies adjusted according toboth criteria (increased land productivity and the areaof abandoned land in municipalities – ).According to scenario I, base subsidies fordifferent municipalities are calculated and allocatedby the following equation:F( I ) = kV⋅ Si i rec , (1)where F ( I ) – base subsidies for land reclamation forithe i th municipality;S rec – share of special subsidies for themaintenance, repair and reconstructionof land drainage;k V i– coefficient assessing the residual valueand depreciation ofland drainage structures in the i thmunicipality. This coefficientis calculated by the following equation:kVi=Vn∑i=1riVriDi100 − DDii100 − Di, (2)LLU Raksti 18 (313), 2007; 17-2421