ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on Soviet Government institutions in the agricultural sector. Agriculture was perhaps the most intractable and important area of policy in the Soviet era. In 1989, James H. Noren noted that "almost half the population's consumption comes directly from agriculture or indirectly through the food processing industry and part of light industry". The March 1989 Central Committee plenum appeared to push devolution of agricultural management further by mandating leasing by farmers and agricultural organizations. At this plenum, Gorbachev advocated the dissolution of Gosagroprom USSR and its replacement by a State Commission for Food and Purchasing within the Council of Ministers USSR. Segments of the ministries of procurements, light industry, and melioration and water economy were also shifted to Gosagroprom. Although Gorbachev's organizational reform retained gosagropromy at the republic level, it limited their authority to control the behavior of agricultural producers.
