ABSTRACT
Because of altered investment priorities, policymakers in socialist countries can no longer increase the resources devoted to agriculture as they have in the past. Instead, they must seek alternative means of improving agricultural performance. One approach has been to change the structure of socialist agriculture and to foster organizational changes within agricultural units. The contributors to this volume evaluate such reforms and weigh their implications for agricultural output and trade. They examine the normless links being introduced in the USSR and compare Soviet experiences with the successes of Chinese and Hungarian reorganizations; describe and analyze the changes being implemented in the German Democratic Republic, Yugoslavia, and Vietnam; and pay particular attention to the role of Polish agriculture in the production crisis and to agriculture's potential for improving Poland's overall economic performance. The contributors also address issues of infrastructure development, the incentives being developed to foster more efficient allocation of resources within the agricultural sector, and the likely growth of East-West and intra-socialist agricultural trade.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
section Section One|64 pages
The Normless Link: A New Era in Socialist Agriculture?
section Section Two|48 pages
Problems of Soviet Agriculture
section Section Three|57 pages
The Role of Agriculture in the Polish Economic Crisis and Recovery
section Section Four|15 pages
Hungarian Agriculture: Evolving to Maintain Progress?
section Section Five|26 pages
Promotion of Efficiency in the Agriculture of the German Democratic Republic
section Section Six|46 pages
Yugoslavia: The Agrarian Sector in a Labor-Managed Economy
section Section Seven|41 pages
Agricultural Policies and Reform in China and Vietnam
section Section Eight|59 pages
Allocating Resources to Promote Efficiency and Structural Change in Agriculture
section Section Nine|69 pages
International Trade and the Agrarian Sector