This volume of proceedings is an edited compilation of selected contributions to the IAMO Forum 2004, which was held in Halle (Saale), Germany, at the Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO) from 4 to 6 November 2004. Agricultural production in CEE has a range of different functions, which to a considerable degree depend on the overall economic development stage of a country. The present volume particularly contributes the following insights concerning the role of agriculture in CEE rural development: Â-Also in countries where redistributive land reforms have resulted in an apparently very homogenous group of small farms, differentiation processes have already gained momentum. It is therefore likely that only a subgroup of initial landowners will continue farming in the future and that further concentration will take place. This calls into question the appropriateness of a broad-based, unimodal strategy for CEE. Â-There is evidence that rural factor markets are increasingly capable of channelling the re-allocation of resources in the process of structural change. However, improvement of their coordination mechanism is still necessary, in particular with regard to credit and labour markets. Credit constraints are supposed to be responsible for the observation that  contrary to experience from developing countries  large farms in several CEE countries display higher land productivities than small farms. Â-Countries in Central Europe which did not destroy the large-scale structures predominant in agriculture before transition but adjusted their internal organisation, involving adaptation to market requirements without throwing overboard the experience of large-scale farming, tend to have the most competitive farming sectors today. However, this was often accompanied with labour shedding which, absent strong public social security systems and alternative income sources, increased rural poverty. Productivity increases on large farms appear to have only a very small effect on poverty alleviation. Â-Non-traditional functions of agriculture beyond Â'food and fibre' production have now begun to attract the attention of researchers in CEE countries, particularly in the new member states of the EU. Awareness of, for example, rural tourism or the cultivation of energy crops as development options has clearly risen. However, these strategies require a very careful examination of their specific strengths and weaknesses, and practical experience with them exists only on a very small or even experimental scale in CEE so far. Â-There is a broad consensus that the growing importance of the second pillar within the CAP of the EU and of decoupled direct payments is also of benefit for the new member states. In particular, traditional forms of market and price support are not regarded as conducive to reach rural development goals. Several authors in this monograph have therefore plead for a more territorial and less sectorial approach to rural development policy also in CEE. In Russia, too, there are voices that endorse this trajectory as a possible guideline for policy reform.
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