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The Economic Analysis of Agrarian Structural Reform: the transition from state to private agriculture in developing and transitional economies

This paper argues that the policy of privatising estates, plantations and state farms in developing and transitional economies by transferring ownership from a state to a private corporate entity is misplaced. Privatisation based on restructuring the estate or state farm organisation of production towards an independent or cooperative smallholder-based system, offers the opportunity of increasing overall output and rural employment, through economies of scope in multi-cropping and the adoption of more labour-intensive techniques giving higher yields on smaller farms. Economies of scale exist more in crop processing than in cultivation activities, but where they exist in the latter, evidence from transitional economies suggests that farmers are inclined to cooperate. Introduction The research agenda set by Carruthers and Kidd (1997) for agricultural economists to ’regain the initiative’ in framing policy includes ’economies in transition’ and the ’purpose of government’. The issue of agricultural privatisation links these two agenda topics and is the focus of this paper. It is also a topic to which agricultural economists can usefully contribute. It will be argued here that the privatisation of estates and plantations in developing 1 This is a revised and shortened version of a paper presented to the Symposium on Agricultural Development Economics at the Agricultural Economics Society Conference in Cambridge in April 1995. Thanks are due to Martin Diedrich, Tim Worrall for helpful comments.