Decollectivisation of agriculture and reshaping of agrarian structure in Central Europe

This article is about the decollectivisation of agriculture which took place in Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland in the first half of the nineteen-nineties as well as about changes in the agrarian structure which were to be observed during the next decade. We argue that significant structural transformations have affected the agricultural domain and altered the way it is used for production. As a result of the transfer of property rights, agricultural land and part of the forests have changed hands. The process of decentralisation of the methods of farming the land which has affected the area of agricultural production is occurring with varying intensity depending on the country and the region. Re-established as the result of decollectivisation, private ownership of the land has been dispersed among a large number of landowners, sometimes without any direct link with agriculture and the rural milieu. More than a decade after the privatisation of the land, the land market is slow to re-establish itself and to play its role fully. Furthermore, farming structures have not become more stable. In a certain number of cases, capital restructuring is taking place within enterprises that have taken over from the former collective farms. Weakened by the impact of greater competition, the less efficient farms have been gradually eliminated. The decrease in the size of the workforce needed for agricultural land continues. The restructuring of the agricultural sector remains incomplete. Far from being fixed, the picture we have painted should be regarded as a snapshot rather than as the culmination of the transformation that has been launched