La nouvelle politique agricole polonaise, 1980-1984

Abstract

The new Polish agricultural policy The stagnation in Polish agriculture, and the chronic structural crisis in its organization, are the result of a failure in the policy followed by the Polish authorities. The present article is concerned with the new agricultural policy, which the Polish government embarked upon during the period 1980-1984. This policy is based on certain fundamental principles such as the guaranteed right of ownership and succession of private farms, and the durability of the status of private agriculture, this political concession being expressed in terms of agricultural self-management, and the creation and guarantee of a climate of confidence. The author first looks at official statements favourable to agriculture, notably the private sector, and at the initiation and implementation of a series of reforms, new laws passed as and when necessary by the Diet. The second part of the article is concerned with an analysis of agricultural incomes, and the author examines the following questions : profitability of the state sector, incomes of private farmers, particularly money incomes, the question of parity of income between workers in the socialized and non-socialized sectors, and, finally, the problem of price-policy in respect of purchases of agricultural produce from private producers. Even within the government departments concerned (the Consultative Economic Council, and the Council for Food Supplies) there is far from unanimity of views in the policy on agricultural incomes. Two fundamental questions are involved : purchase prices paid to farmers by the State and "parity" as between agricultural and non- agricultural incomes. The Consultative Economic Council's view is that, in a period of serious disequilibrium, a rise in agricultural prices and incomes must have an unsetting effect on the market, and is likely to set an inflationary spiral in motion ; they likewise fear the creation of an inflationary disequilibrium in agriculture. This view is upheld by other supporters of a policy of limiting the incomes of private farmers, who suggest the introduction of a progressive agricultural tax. This view is opposed by other economists, who hold that the most urgent of all priorities must be an increase in agricultural production. Almost all the discussion on the new agricultural policy centres on proposals for a revised Polish system which would replace administrative directives by economic instruments. The author concludes by expressing the view that the only hope for development in Polish agriculture lies in political concessions to the producers.