Agriculture in transition economies: from common heritage to divergence

Abstract The 23 former socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) started the transition in 1989–1990 from a common institutional and organizational heritage, represented by the Soviet agricultural model. Despite the common heritage in agriculture, the reform policies in CEE and CIS diverged from the start, as significant differences emerged between the two groups of countries in legal attitudes to private land ownership, transferability of land, the extent of agricultural privatization and individualization, and restructuring of farms. This divergence in the implementation of agricultural reform has led to divergence in standard development measures: the CEE countries are outperforming the CIS countries by growth in GDP and agricultural product since 1992; the productivity of agricultural labor in CEE is generally increasing, and in CIS it is decreasing. While the CIS countries at best can be characterized as reluctant reformers, the CEE countries have achieved significantly higher levels of economic and institutional reform. Better performance in CEE is associated with greater readiness of the governments in these countries to implement a comprehensive package of economic and social reform policies, including more radical land reform and deeper individualization and restructuring of agriculture.