ABSTRACT
The principles lying behind the reconstruction of agricultural systems in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania can be found in official World Bank sources that include recommendations issued to the new countries created after the collapse of the former Soviet Union. The predilection for family farming at the World Bank and among its researchers is based upon the excellence of family farming argument. All the Baltic countries decided to adopt the family farm system as their transition goal, even though the legislation in Estonia and Latvia was technically quite neutral. Instead of productive agricultural enterprises, former kolkhozes and sovkhozes could be turned into 'all types of voluntary and commercial cooperatives. The family farm theory and the corporate farm theory thus constitute two sides of the same agricultural theory. The natural conditions in the Baltic States favoured specialization in dairy farming. Estonia and Lithuania represent extreme cases with regard to the ratio of large- to small-scale production in the former Soviet Union.
