ABSTRACT
Agricultural policy in Czechoslovakia has aimed at three objectives. First, agriculture was to be socialized, with private production replaced by the collective farm or jednotne zemedelske druztvo (JZD), or by the state farm. Second, agriculture was to become more productive. Finally, planners have sought to eliminate regional differences in the productivity of agriculture. This process required the raising of productivity in the Slovak Socialist Republic to the level attained in the Czech Socialist Republic. The collectivization of agriculture in Czechoslovakia began in 1949 on the basis of the Unified Cooperatives Act of February 23. Once collectivization was completed, attention turned to increasing the productivity of agriculture. While the rationalization of both JZDs and state farms appears to be consistent with the goals of the planners to mechanize agriculture and to create an agro-industrial complex, the relative stability of the share of land, labor and other resources allocated to these two forms of organization is somewhat surprising.
