Don't Sell that Farm

When the Iron Curtain fell 20 years ago, Mr Everdingen did not have to think twice. In his native Netherlands he reared organic livestock and wanted to expand his business, a difficult task in a densely populated country. He toured some former communist countries and in the end settled in western Bohemia, where he bought a farm that none of the locals wanted.

Today his cows graze the meadows around Žebráky near Tachov and the farmer offers popular agrotourism services. "We've simply found fantastic conditions for our business," says Mr Everdingen, who has by now learned decent Czech. His farm has made the surrounding landscape more picturesque, and locals regard this foreigner on Czech soil as one of their own.

Mr Everdingen part-owns and part-rents his land. "Ownership is safer, though," he says. "It gives you more of a guarantee that your investment in the land will return." The Dutch farmer's chance will come in 2011, when a temporary ban on foreigners buying Czech farmland will be lifted. Meanwhile, Czechs wonder how the move will change the country's rural landscape.

Prices will grow
Landownership by foreigners is no rarity in Europe. Abandoned estates in rural Normandy have been recently popular among wealthy Britons, who buy them up en masse and try their luck as farmers. How much demand there will be for…