Despite moves towards simplification, a Land Observatory is coming this summer. What’s more, there is broad consensus from both the Commission and farming organisations on the need for some more harmonised monitoring of land transactions. But how much power will – or should – such an Observatory have? What will it try to do? And which tools are in place at national and regional level? Oliver Moore takes us through the terrain.
By 2040, the EU could lose a further 6.4 million farms, suggests data from the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), bringing the remaining number of farms in the EU as a whole to around 3.9 million – a decrease of 62% compared to 2016 figures.
Concurrently, go big or go bust is increasingly the mantra: a 2024 Greenpeace EU report revealed that farms with an economic output of more than €250,000 per year grew by more than half (+56%) between 2007 and 2022.
Stresses on the land are rapid, intensifying and overlapping. Speculators are pricing young farmers out of rural areas. Extreme weather and intensive practices are wreaking massive environmental impacts. New infrastructural demands such as anaerobic digestors, solar and wind farms are adding to the pressure.
In the face of these stresses, political momentum is building around the concept of a land observatory for Europe.
Political will at EU level
Despite the ongoing legislative rollback and push towards simplification, the case and need for a European Land Observatory has strengthened. Commissioner Hansen made such a case in his hearings in November; it continued into the Strategic Dialogue and more recently in the Vision for Farming and Food – widely seen as the blueprint for the EU’s agri-food direction.
According to the Vision, such an initiative will “enhance transparency and cooperation in domains such as land transactions and transfers of land use rights, price trends and market behaviour, changes in land use, as well as loss of agricultural and natural land. The observatory will also help the Member States take informed decisions on the regulation of their farmland markets.”
On April 10th, DG AGRI announced that a €1 million budget has been set aside for a two-year pilot phase for a Land Observatory, starting in July.
The announcement was made by Ricard Ramon i Sumoy, Acting Head of Unit DG AGRI, Policy Perspectives at a high-level meeting in Brussels that was also attended by DGs ESTAT and FISMA, the FAO, farming organisations (CEJA, COPA, ECVC), representatives of a number of member states’ Departments of Agriculture (Latvia, Slovakia), rural agencies and France’s SAFER network of regional development agencies.
Sumoy (DG AGRI) pointed to the following areas an observatory could explore:
- Mapping and gap analysis of land monitoring at EU level – how the observatory could fill those current gaps
- Drawing key lessons from the design and establishment of national observatories
- Analyse access to new data on land market and acquisitions
- Build an harmonised approach to build an approach of land control and access
- Develop common methodologies to compare prices (rents and values)
- Analyse strategies & identifying good practices to support young farmers’ access to land
- FDI screening (foreign investments in large buyouts of farmland)
Young farmer organisation CEJA wants such an observatory to focus on land transactions and transfer of land use rights, land use change, access to land for young farmers, impact of subsidies on land prices.
Similarly European Coordination of La Via Campesina (ECVC) emphasises accessing public data, the impact of public policies on land, the links between governance and generational renewal, and understanding the relationship between ownership, subsidies and beneficiaries.
Access to Land network and ECVC propose a Land Observatory with land justice and agroecological transition at its core, and a new European farmland directive.
A Land Use directive would include capping (at 500 hectares, but with nationally negotiated ceilings); measures to prevent concentration such as submission of operation plans; the use of public land banks; overseen by a land observatory for monitoring transactions.
Key for these two organisations is farmer participation and guiding regulation towards implementing agroecology.
What data and methods are already out there?
Such an observatory could piggy back on the data collection already underway at EU level. For other reasons – namely to combat money laundering and terrorism – the European Commission has required every Member State to establish a register of the final beneficiaries of companies. (See for example the 4th and 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directives, or AMLDs).
While privacy concerns remain, using these registers and CAP applications, it is possible to identify the final beneficiaries and determine if they are engaged in agricultural activities. The Commission can also identify farm units operating in multiple Member States.
Several Member States already have a number of policies in place to build upon. These include in Germany administrative lease permits and pre-emptive rights at the Länder/regional level; in Poland the National Agricultural Support Centre has pre-emption rights in relation to agricultural real estate and forests (in some circumstances).
The French SAFER system (Sociétés d’Aménagement Foncier et d’Établissement Rural) is one of the best known interventionist systems for land management. Created in 1960, SAFER agencies “are public-interest bodies tasked with regulating rural land markets, ensuring that land sales promote agricultural development, environmental sustainability, and social equity” as Dr. Mary Curtin put it in a recent public policy paper. “Their core power lies in the “droit de préemption”, or right of first refusal, which allows the SAFER agency to intervene in private land transactions, purchase land, and resell it to buyers whose goals align with public policy.”
In 2022, the FAO developed its Concept Note for a Global Land Observatory (GLO) to generate and make available data, evidence, and analysis on land tenure and governance issues, working as a reference for governments, organisations and others. The first global report from the GLO will launch in October.
In the UK there are moves to begin to grapple with land issues, with a once-in-a-lifetime Land Use Framework being developed.
Unexpected alliances in Ireland
Meanwhile in Ireland, pressures on the land have catalysed into unexpected alliances.
A Land Use Review is underway via a process of citizen engagement. (Disclaimer: Oliver Moore sits on this working group as a representative of civil society.)
In parallel, the concept of a Land Observatory for Ireland is gaining traction.
The Irish Land Observatory Stakeholders group brings together young dairy farmers (Daniel and Tom Long) and environmental activists such as former Green MEP candidate Saoirse McHugh.
On March 25 last, the group met with a number of officials from DG AGRI, and was joined by Access to Land Europe’s Almudena Garcia Sastre, in a meeting organised by Renew MEP Cynthia Ní Mhurchú.
It was Saoirse McHugh who first named the idea of a Land Observatory in Ireland in 2021. She proposed that it would “not only track ownership and price but could also study the effect different policies have on land ownership patterns.”
As McHugh noted at the time: “Moving to a system where price is not the only consideration when somebody is buying land but first refusal is given to young/first time ecological farmers prioritising positive land use. This will make environmental action easier and fairer.”
With speculated farmland approaching €40,000 an acre in an increasing number of places, some far from urban centres, with wealthy racehorse owners and the proliferation of anaerobic digestor plants piling huge pressure on land prices, an Irish Land Observatory would shake things up significantly on the Emerald Isle.
“In Ireland, a pilot land observatory could work really well,” believes Daniel Long, who farms in South Tipperary in Ireland, where much land consolidation pressure is being felt. Speaking at the Feeding Ourselves 2025 gathering in Cloughjordan, he added: “It will be optional for member states to participate in having a land observatory in their state, but obviously we hope and encourage that as many nations as possible would take on a European Land Observatory.”
What’s next?
Whether any of these processes will have any bite remains to be seen. In France and elsewhere, land prices and land concentration continue to rise.
There are also specificities and concerns in each member state which can work for or against a Land Observatory, from property and privacy rights to vested interests. Harmonising data across different competencies will not be easy.
Perhaps most importantly, what power will such an Observatory actually have? It’s one thing to look at things and to provide information, it’s quite another to do anything about it. A Land Use directive, or a timelined and targeted focus on enabling agroecological transition, would add impact and directionality.
However deep it ploughs its furrow, it appears a Land Observatory is on its way – and very soon.
More on access to land
Access to Land: Looking to Europe to Secure Local Farmland? Part 1
Access to Land: More Resilient Agriculture – Without Any EU Legislation? (Part 2)
