ABSTRACT
Agriculture plays a key role in generating economic growth and development. Early views of the contribution of agriculture to this process held that the sector served primarily as a reservoir of labor and savings to be drained off to support the more dynamic sectors of manufacturing and services. This chapter shows that discussion to consider the role of agriculture in economic development, specifically the impact of different types of agricultural organization on the ability of the sector to promote or hinder development. After identifying the basic theoretical issues and conclusions of the development literature, the chapter considers how particular aspects of the postwar experiences of Yugoslavia, Poland, and Bulgaria may be used to evaluate critically the standard conclusions of this literature on organization, productivity, and technological change. The East European experience contains more variations in and information on the performance of the Soviet model in the transformation of traditional agriculture than the Soviet experience alone.
