ABSTRACT
A reform or the state farms was introduced in July 1981. They were to become fully efficient, autonomous and self-financing economic units. The policy has resulted in the allocation of scarce investment resources and agricultural inputs to the less efficient sector of the economy. The appearance of a very deep balance-of-payments disequilibrium in the middle of the 1970s, the growing indebtedness that it created and attempts to cope with this situation by arbitrary cuts in imports by administrative commands were the immediate cause of the overall economic decline. External problems destabilize the economy and prolong the crisis. The agricultural crisis has contributed to the difficulties. After a period of rapid economic growth in the first half of the 1970s, the rate of growth of Net Domestic Material Product in Poland started to decline in the middle of the decade. The crisis is extremely severe because it is composed of several overimposed elements, of which the state of agriculture is one.
