Russian views of the transition in the rural sector : structures, policy outcomes, and adaptive responses

"...a decade into the reform, the number of collective farms has not changed. These enterprises remain the dominant agricultural producers, while the role of individual farms is still marginal and stagnant (Goskomstat 1997: 38; 1998)." Western strategies are not working for Russian agriculture. To determine why the reforms suggested by Western experts for Russian reformers are either faltering or ignored, the World Bank invited several Russian scholars to submit papers on a variety of rural and social development themes. The scholars' contributions varied from national to local in scope and used rural economic, sociological, political, and demographic analysis to reach their conclusions. Some of their observations were consistent with those of World Bank experts; others, surprisingly, differ substantially from Bank findings. Although the World Bank perspective has been published elsewhere and circulated widely, this volume benefits from the unique perspective of these Russian academicians. In publishing these papers, the editor hopes to stimulate dialogue to assist the Bank in addressing the pressing issues facing rural communities in Russia. Annotation " ... a decade into the reform, the number of collective farms has not changed. These enterprises remain the dominant agricultural producers, while the role of individual farms is still marginal and stagnant (Goskomstat 1997: 38; 1998)."Western strategies are not working for Russian agriculture. To determine why the reforms suggested by Western experts for Russian reformers are either faltering or ignored, the World Bank invited several Russian scholars to submit papers on a variety of rural and social development themes. The scholars' contributions varied from national to local in scope and used rural economic, sociological, political, and demographic analysis to reach their conclusions. Some of their observations were consistent with those of World Bank experts; others, surprisingly, differ substantially from Bank findings. Although the World Bank perspective has been published elsewhere and circulated widely, this volume benefits from the unique perspective of these Russian academicians. In publishing these papers, the editor hopes to stimulate dialogue to assist the Bank in addressing the pressing issues facing rural communities in Russia This compendium of papers by Russian experts on the rural sector seeks to explore the institutions, policy outcomes, and adaptive responses of enterprises and households to restructuring of the rural sector. The importance of household plots has increased dramatically but these production units are still dependent on the large successors to the collective and state farms. There are some hopeful signs that the markets are responding to the reforms and producing more efficiently, but this is offset by the uneven implementation of new farm and enterprise laws across the different regions. Because of demographic shifts and the change in land markets, the boundaries between rural and urban are blurred particularly in large metropolitan areas. Rural women continue to bear a disproportionate burden of household work, and the opportunities for migrants moving to rural communities to match or exceed their previous standards of living are constrained. This is due to the importance of social networks of households and enterprises and access to scarce inputs in rural areas