Impact of rural migration on farm land use in northeastern Albania

The fall of the Communist regime in Albania in 1991 caused a massive rural urban migration along the coast. The main objective of this paper was to investigate the impact of this phenomenon on agricultural land use in the northeastern region of the country, most affected by migration. A comprehensive approach was adopted based on a survey of 594 families that had migrated into the area around Tirana. The results were analysed focussing on three main issues: 1) the dynamics of families' settlement in the area around Tirana in the period 1990-2000,2) the main features of the 1991 agrarian reform (law 7501) applied in the northeastern region, and 3) the limited use of the agricultural land in the migrants' area of origin (43% of uncultivated land in the Northeast). The agricultural land is not generally sold nor rented: it is temporarily assigned to the family members who have not migrated.