Decollectivization Of Agriculture Research Articles

The abolition of People’s Communes and fertility decline in rural China

This study investigates the impact of the abolition of People’s Communes in the early 1980s on rural fertility in China. Exploiting the staggered implementation of agricultural decollectivization, we show that decollectivization led to a significant decline in rural fertility, independent of the impact of family planning policies. Counties with higher levels of egalitarianism during the commune period experienced a sharper fertility decline following decollectivization, indicating that the elimination of egalitarian income distribution is the key mechanism behind this fertility decline. We find no evidence supporting the alternative hypothesis that the fertility decline was due to increased opportunity costs of childbearing associated with higher agricultural productivity after decollectivization.

Transition to a market economy: A retrospective comparison of China with countries of the former Soviet block

AbstractIn the 1990s and early 2000s, comparison of transition strategies of China versus those in Central and Eastern Europe raised controversies in the economic and political science literature. However, differences between China and the countries of the former Soviet bloc in their transition strategies resulted not necessarily from a deliberate political choice but from different initial conditions. Low-income and largely rural China, after its first radical step (de-collectivisation of agriculture in 1978), could move more gradually due to its under-industrialisation and retaining administrative control over the economy. The over-industrialised Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and former Soviet Union (FSU) countries where the previous command system of economic management spontaneously collapsed at the end of 1980s, did not have such an option. They had to conduct market-oriented reforms as quickly as they could, with all the associated economic and social pain. Regardless of speed and strategy of transition, almost all previously centrally-planned economies, including China, completed building basic foundations of a market system by the early 2000s although the quality of economic and political institutions and policies differ between the sub-regional groups and individual countries.

Land reform by default: uncovering patterns of agricultural decollectivization in Tajikistan

Like that in other post-communist states, Tajikistan’s agricultural decollectivization was initiated through top-down measures. However, the implementation process has not been uniform across the state’s territory; in some districts collective farms were quickly and thoroughly broken up, while in others the process is just now beginning. In this paper, we investigate spatial variation in Tajikistan’s decollectivization process. Through analyses of diverse data, we reveal that low cotton yield is a necessary condition for farm individualization in districts that are distant from the capital. We interpret this result as indicating that farm managers responsible for unproductive farms often have little incentive or capacity to resist the break-up of farms. In contrast, managers of productive farms have both an incentive and the capacity to maintain collective farming. Furthermore, although human capital dimensions, including family size, off-farm income and education, affect an individual farmer’s preference for private farming, these are not necessary conditions for widespread farm individualization at the district level. In other words, we did not find evidence that farmers had the capacity to directly determine collective farm dissolution.

The shaping of an institutional choice: Weather shocks, the Great Leap Famine, and agricultural decollectivization in China

By providing more public goods (irrigation), collective agriculture can deal with negative weather shocks more effectively. Yet, collective institutions are fraught with problems of work incentives, excessive grain procurement, and the like, which in one extreme historical instance had resulted in great tragedy—China's Great Leap Famine. By exploiting the variation in the pace of agricultural decollectivization among the Chinese provinces during 1978–1984, we test the respective effects of weather shocks, the lasting impact of the Great Leap Famine, and public goods provision on the villages' institutional choice between collective and family farming. We find that bad weather at the time of decollectivization had the likely effect of strengthening the collectives, but that effect reverses in provinces that had experienced greater famine severity or had enjoyed better public goods provision.

“I do not understand how I became a farmer”: The small-peasant path to family farm enterprise in post-socialist rural Hungary

Family farm enterprises emerged in the transition to capitalism following the reprivatization and decollectivization of agriculture in Hungary. This paper explores the generative processes of capital accumulation. It focuses on the intergenerational transfer as well as the life time generation of material and immaterial resources that were mobilized for the creation of the family farm enterprise. The life stories of six family members belonging to three generations of a successful enterprise of low peasant origin were selected from fieldwork conducted between 2000 and 2007 exploring the specificities of the genesis of farms with small peasant roots. Immaterial capital assets were the most important for the expanded reproduction of the farm, while reprivatized land had mostly symbolic importance. The farm relied on traditional peasant cultural heritage, such as striving for autonomy, self-sacrificing work mentality and traditional forms of bonding social capital, in the form of kin and local community reciprocal work relations. Meanwhile, the farm needed nontraditional cultural capital, such as entrepreneurial mentality and bridging social capital to find suitable markets for the products. These later emerged through education, by learning from experience, establishing trust relationships and with the help of mentors.

Faith or Tradition: the Armenian Apostolic Church and Community-Building in Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh1

It is no secret that the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) is closely connected with Armenian nationality and Armenian states (Armenia and Nagorny Karabakh). Previous studies have concentrated on surveying the privileges granted to it by these Armenian states. This study goes further by elucidating complementary relations between the AAC and these states in community-building. These states are suffering from the incompetence of local governments created by radical municipal reforms and the decollectivisation of agriculture during the 1990s. They need the help of the AAC, which is potentially able to mobilise rural intellectuals via church (parish) councils. The AAC wishes to reinforce its position, which it sees as endangered by various ‘sectarian’ challenges. Its weak appeal to faith (insufficient evangelisation) gives Protestant ‘sectarians’ abundant room for proselytism, against which the AAC intends to struggle ‘from below’ by its deeper involvement in community-building.

Doi Moi and Its Discontents: Gender, Liberalisation, and Decollectivisation in Rural Viet Nam

This article explores the ways in which liberalisation processes and the decollectivisation of agriculture have impacted on gender relations in Viet Nam. In Viet Nam, decollectivisation entailed a highly egalitarian land redistribution and so presents a nearly unique case study. I discuss two sets of theories: market transition theory and feminist theories analysing the household and household production processes. While market transition theories offer some insights into the differential effects of liberalisation, they do not address aspects of women's work outside the formal economy. In contrast, feminist theories are able to comprehend the complex and interlocking nature of households, lineages, and the wider economy for women's lives and work.I argue that collectivisation of agriculture presented some advantages for women, in that some work was socialised, and earning work points made their work more visible than it had been within peasant households. Decollectivisation and capitalist market relations have offered opportunities for some: for instance, Vietnamese women's role as market traders has been restored. Agricultural productivity has risen, and this has benefited women as well as men. However, this process also restores much more control to male household heads. New property laws give wives the right to have their names on title deeds, along with husbands; however, this is rarely enforced. The majority of peasant women face a loss of services, increased economic instability, and increased risk. New forms of labour organising may be needed to assist rural women in realising land and other rights.

The causes of the reforestation in Vietnam

We test an emerging theory of the forest transition using the case of Vietnam. In the early 1990s, decollectivisation of agriculture, allocation of forestry land to households, and the development of market networks transformed land use in the mountains of Vietnam, leading to an increase in forest area. We used census and geographic data covering the whole country at a fine level of aggregation to build a spatial lag regression model of reforestation. We separated natural forest regrowth from the increase in plantation forests. The forest transition theory distinguishes between the forest scarcity and economic development paths. Our study suggests that the forest scarcity path was in part at work in Vietnam: new policies allocating forestry land to households, local scarcity of forest products, and development of remote demand for timber contributed to forest cover increases. The evidence regarding the economic development path are more ambiguous, as there was no depopulation or agricultural decline in marginal regions. We propose a third forest transition path that better corresponds to Vietnam's situation: a smallholder agricultural intensification path. In marginal regions, land scarcity associated with population growth, land degradation, and political restrictions led to, on one hand, a decline in cultivation on hillsides followed by reforestation and, on the other hand, an increase in labour inputs on the plots with the highest agro-ecological potential. The development of markets for agricultural inputs and outputs did also contribute to reforestation by raising agricultural productivity in mountain paddies and maize fields. This reinforced the concentration of agriculture on the most suitable land.

Economic Reform and Intergenerational Relationships in China

The process of modernization in China is occurring in a context of rapid population ageing—the reverse of the sequence in the West—and presents serious challenges to the tradition of reliance on family and work unit support. This paper examines the impact of post-Mao economic reform, including the de-collectivization of agriculture, the loosening of restrictions on migration, and housing and enterprise reform, on the support systems of China's elderly. Delivering family support has become increasingly problematic, and researchers and policy-makers have begun urging the Chinese government to take practical steps to alleviate the situation. They point out that most children are doing whatever they can, but that the financial and opportunity costs of providing care exceed what is possible. They urge the government to address problems of elderly poverty by developing rural pension schemes, major illness insurance and long-term care insurance, by increasing hospital and community health services for the elderly, and by training basic-level workers in the special needs of the elderly.

Connecting Marginal Rice Farmers to Agricultural Knowledge and Information Systems in Vietnam Uplands

In Vietnam, agricultural extension has contributed to rural development and poverty alleviation over the past two decades of agricultural decollectivization, but it was not very effective in reducing disparities within farmer communities. The study examined how better interactions of extension services with other agencies and information sources may help marginal farmers in catching up with the general improvement of living conditions in a mountainous area in northern Vietnam. It combined three complementary viewpoints on this issue: that of the agricultural extension staff, that of farmers and that of development experts with a long working experience in the mountains of Vietnam. The analysis of existing structures and functions of the extension system revealed a number of obstacles to the participation of marginal farmers in extension programmes and helped to identify relevant domains of intervention.

Agrarian transition and lowland–upland interactions in mountain areas in northern Vietnam: application of a multi-agent simulation model

The agrarian transition that accompanied the decollectivisation of agriculture in the northern Vietnam uplands challenges traditional approaches to land use analysis. In the 1980s, a series of reforms progressively returned means of production to individual farmers. Over the same period the mountains in the study area lost 50% of their forest cover. This paper provides an overview of the impact of changes in government policies on farmers’ practices, on land use, and on environmental dynamics. It applies a multi-agent simulation model to validate the hypotheses derived from household survey and remote sensing data about the mechanisms linking the allocation of paddyland to farm households with shifting cultivation on the hillsides, and deforestation. The model explains the diversity of the current land use systems by analysing the interactions between land tenure policies in the lower part of the toposequence and the dynamics of land use in the upper part. The findings are based on an extensive diagnostic survey of a number of representative sites, on generation of primary data from an intensive survey of 50 randomly selected households, and on insights gained by the authors during their long association with an action research project using a participatory observation method. The authors also explore whether the modelling approach can capture the main features of complex human-environment interactions of a site and can help apply the findings to the broader agroecosystem the site represents.

Impact of forestland allocation on land use in a mountainous province of Vietnam

In the early 1990s following the decollectivization of agriculture, the Vietnamese government distributed forest land-use rights to individual households. The new forestland policy had three related objectives: (i) the introduction of a sedentary livelihood system for those populations who had traditionally relied on shifting cultivation and regular migration; (ii) the development of the village economy through tree plantations; and (iii) the protection of forest resources. In this paper, we discuss the changes in land use that resulted from the new forestland policy and the effectiveness of the policy in achieving each of its three objectives.

The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961

The Causes of China’s Great Leap Famine, 1959–1961

“Crossing A River By Groping for Stones”: Factors Reshaping the Policy Innovation Process for Chinese Water Policies

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese leaders initiated a multi-faceted process of reform through agricultural decollectivization, township and village enterprises, market liberalization, and international engagements. On the one hand, these reforms produced a stunning record of economic growth documented in per capita GDP, exports, and foreign capital investments. On the other hand, these reforms produced unforeseen social and political consequences such as tax riots, labor strikes, environmental, anti-corruption, and gender protests. These patterns of conflict are not just responses to the reforms but also redefine the power, authority, and reach of the state. Each pattern weaves a new state-society relationship that is transforming policymaking. This research examines new patterns of entrepreneurship in the policy debates of the Three Gorges Project since 1986. The study documents innovations initiated by a configuration of actors outside the traditional Chinese organizational and leadership bases. The debates over "transparency in dam construction" and "consultation in resettlement programs" describe high risk entrepreneurship by redefining issues to build a support coalition inside and outside the Chinese political system. New forums develop from intellectual circles, societal-economic interests, international non-governmental organiza-tions, and popular dissent for innovation. This pattern of entrepreneurship is characterized not be a single entrepreneur but by a pooling of resources and power among social actors for innovation.

The Economics of Agricultural Decollectivization in East Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union

1989 include both the privatization of agricultural production assets and the restructuring of state and collective farms. Farm restructuring and, more specifically, the breakup of large-scale agricultural production units into individually operated farms—a process we define as ‘‘decollectivization’’—differ considerably for the various ECE and FSU countries. Differences in decollectivization can be observed across countries, between regions within a country, and over time. We argue that these differences are not random. This article identifies the factors that affect the decollectivization process and shows how they are consistent with empirically observed differences in agricultural decollectivization in ECE and FSU countries. The decollectivization process is a consequence of the decision of collective farm members to leave the collective production framework and start up individual farms. Factors affecting this decision are the expected productivity and profitability of individual farming relative to collective farming and the costs for individuals to leave the collective farm and start up an individual farm. These costs are affected by land reform, privatization, and decollectivization regulations. The relative productivity of individual versus collective farming depends on the distribution of collective farmers’ productivity, the prereform average collective farm productivity, and the advantages and disadvantages of individual farming compared to collective farming. The literature on decollectivization identifies both advantages and disadvantages in collective production, some of which would not extend beyond the transition period. Disadvantages include high transaction costs associated with the monitoring of labor and inefficiencies due to the right of

Fertility in China 1982-1990: Gender equality as a complement to wealth flows theory

Some scholars claim there is little variation in Chinese fertility because of ‘coercive’ family planning policies. This research, however, demonstrates that other factors contribute to significant variation in fertility rates among China's 30 provinces/administrative divisions. Although family planning and socioeconomic development are found to explain significant amounts of variation in fertility for both the 1982 and 1990 census cross-sections, it was also found that gender equality in education had become significant by 1990. Path model results that lag the effects of 1982 socioeconomic development and gender equality in education also indicate that they both have sizable direct effects and moderate indirect effects through family planning behavior on 1990 fertility rates. Discussions include the possibility that the recent free market and institutional reforms, e.g., the decollectivization of agriculture, have contributed a social structure whereby many Chinese families have increased awareness of the opportunity costs associated with their reproductive decision making.

Decollectivization of Agriculture and the Planned Economy

Theory: I take a resource dependence perspective on the reform of collectivized agriculture. Hypothesis: Collective farms resist breakup if they are dependent on resources distributed through the command economy. The state's role in the distribution of resources is explained by its relationship to the peasantry before collectivization. Methods: I use comparative case histories of Russian and Chinese agriculture. Results: Large-scale decollectivization of agriculture will not occur in Russia as long as collective farms remain dependent on redistribution through the state apparatus. The role of collectivization in the state-building process explains why the Soviet collective farm was tied strongly to the state, while the Chinese collective farm was not.

Tourism in Transition in Post-Soviet Estonia

The newly-independent states which emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union are now in a transition from a centrally-planned economy to a market economy. This paper presents a case study of Estonia. The earlier tourism model is reviewed as a historical background to the contemporary situation. During the Soviet period, there was substantial state investment in tourism in the capital city. Foreign tourism was highly dependent on a single market, Finland, and this dependency continues today. The transition to a market economy is made up of democratization, decollectivization of agriculture, privatization of state enterprises, and land and property reform. This paper discusses tourism flows, assesses Estonia's tourism market, and proposes development strategies.

Regional variations on Russian chaos: Price controls, regional trade barriers, and other neo-classical abominations

Conventional economic “transition” policies work poorly in developing economies, but produce disastrous results when applied within the context of Soviet-type economic and social institutions. There are clear structural reasons which take account of the very different “embedded” relationships and make the current crisis in the Russian Republic explicable, if not easily remediable. Analyses of the regional differences in the economic and social measures adopted to try to buffer the negative effects of national level “shock” policies and the pervasive resistance to decollectivization of agriculture are used by this paper as tools to explore the operating-level implications of the mismatch between the macro-level policies adopted under the name of economic reform and the economic and social behavior induced by them at the operating-level.

The evolution of population policy in rural China

Fertility declined rapidly in China in the 1970s, to slightly above replacement level by 1978. It was in-tended by the government that the One-Child Family Policy, introduced in 1979, would lower fertilitystill further. However, the decollectivization of agriculture, also initiated in the late 1970s, weakenedcollective institutions, thereby undermining birth planning administration and family planning services.The consequent stall in fertility was succeeded in 1987 by a sudden and pronounced decline, to a totalfertility rate of 1.8 in 1992. This paper is an attempt to explain this recent decline in terms of fallingdemand for children, the provision of more accessible family planning services, and the operation ofrestrictive population policy. The major emphasis is on the formulation and implementation of birthcontrol policies in rural areas. Since 1979 central government population policy has become progressivelyliberalized, culminating in the formal abandonment of the One-Child Family Policy in 1991. Local policy-makers, however, have been intimately exposed to the reproductive demands of the peasantry. Asa result a uniform national policy co-exists with highly diverse policies at the local level, dependenton social and economic conditions. The declining authority of township (commune) birth planning ad-ministrations was arrested in the late 1980s with the massive injection of funds from all levels of govern-ment. This reversal was aided by the recruitment of over 50 million volunteers by the CommunistParty-led Family Planning Association, to reinforce the work of birth planning cadres and family plan-ning personnel. Above all, it is argued that the effective implementation of local birth plans has reliedon an intensification of cooperation between birth planning officials and other local government cadreswho regulate access to resources, such as land and credit, without which the aspirations of ordinarypeople cannot be realised.