engleski

Agrarian changes in lower-Neretvian area from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth century

Lower-Neretvian Area is one of the most developed agricultural areas of Croatia. Until the second half of the 20th century this was a scarcely populated area with poor inhabitants and undeveloped agriculture. Numerous plans for land improvement of the Lower-Neretvian Area, drawn up in the past centuries by several professional services of the Venetian Republic, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Kingdom of Yugoslavia, were in most cases not successfully realised. Extensive land cultivation and low production of field crops dominated the economy of the region. Agrarian landscape was formed by the simple system of ditch digging, which helped the local people to extend the cultivating surfaces in the swamp area. In the period of socialistic planning and economy, many attempts regarding land improvement of this Area were made, which primarily concerned the expansion of agricultural areas, intensive land cultivation and introduction of new field crops. Agricultural production in the communist period was not market-oriented, therefore many different problems regarding the managing of this big economic potential emerged in the period of transformation of Croatian economy during the 1990s, problems which exceed regional frames with their social and economical significance.

(the river) Neretva; Lower-Neretvian Area; land improvement; ditch digging; agriculture; rural landscape

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