ABSTRACT
This chapter describes agricultural reform in Poland after the fall of the Communist regime to Poland’s political, economic, and institutional environment. The Polish institutional environment was more favorable for decollectivization than were the environments of other Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs), due to the importance of private family farming in Poland’s prereform agricultural sector. Polish landownership during the Communist regime was unique because of the predominance of private landownership. A key factor contributing to the relatively slow privatization and decollectivization of Polish state farms was the low demand for state farm assets by private agricultural producers. Polish individual producers were expected to leave the state or cooperative farm to start a private family farm more easily than producers in other CEECs. In 1989 the united peasant party tried to change its image as a Communist Party alliance by using its pre-Communist name the Polish Peasant Party.
