The average area of land per holding was 20,6 ha in 2000, it is considered as a big area of land comparing to the county’s average (8,92 ha). However, I have to mention that the distribution of the lands was not even at all between the holdings, 71,7% was cultivated indipendently by the Állami Ménesbirtok Zrt of Mezőhegyes. 754 holdings tilled the soil in the remaining land. Thus, the area of land per holding was indeed 5,8 ha which does not show such a favourable situation. In the earlier times the land was even more fragmented. Between 1994 and 2000 the number of private holdings decreased by 54,9% in the settlement (while by 40,5% in the county). Technical development, production management with computers caused decrease and reduction in the labour force. Unemployment is an everyday phenomenon. In spite of these facts the sugar factory prospered economically in the examined some decades. The „Fémipari Szövetkezet” („Metal Industrial Co-operative”) was the second largest factory of Mezőhegyes after the sugar factory. The economic difficulties forced it to mobilize the working reserves. These changes determined the social mobility of the population. Furthermore a natural reduction in the birth rate characterized this period. Consequently, the change in the social sphere, the reduction in the number of population must have been caused by alterations in the economic sphere on one hand, and by the natural reduction on the other hand. The economic change affected the infrastructure, as well. The sugar-beet was transported especially by train, what is more transportation by train to the factory in Mezőhegyes was the most significant in the region. As the time went by transportation on roads became more and more important beside the railway. The sugar factory polluted the environment at a certain degree. This way the economic sphere changed the natural sphere, too. A Mezőhegyesi Ménesbirtok the adverse meteorological one - two exceptionally drought years -, and into an other economic crisis situation avoided often in the examined period because of relations, indebted, his liquidity was deteriorating. They saw the definitive solution in the privatization, which they accomplished in an one-turn procedure, on the road of an open application. A Ménesbirtok Rt. shares in 85,5% are property of Határhaszon Rt., 13% employee’s share and 1,5% ordinary share of Ménesbirtok Rt. The company may have known profitable financial years behind himself since the privatization.

number of resident population per 100 ha; number of farmsteads; the average land per farmstead; branches depending on each other; structure of the livestock

Presentation: oral