ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that as a result of decollectivization, two theoretically different types of agricultural systems are currently emerging in the Baltic States: the Estonian and the Lithuanian model. It is based on a survey material that was collected at the end of 1994; a complementary material from spring of 1995; and on a local community study. Agricultural petty production in the Baltic countries is keeping up the tradition of socialist private farming. The decollectivization of agriculture in Estonia has thus led to a drastic change within the rural population. In Latvia and especially in Lithuania, however, decollectivization has not changed the population’s occupational structure. Large-scale agricultural enterprises are defined as those with a staff of ten or more, small-scale enterprises as those with a staff of nine or less. Small-scale farms are more prevalent in Lithuania than they are in Estonia and Latvia, and consequently agricultural wage labour is less important in this country as well.
