Social Assessment and Agricultural Reform in Central Asia and Turkey

"Rural families in the CIS enjoyed more equal conditions under socialist regimes. The withdrawal of the state from many areas of life is increasing inequality between rural and urban people. Subnational inequalities within the rural sector are also growing."The transformation of Central and Eastern European agriculture started almost a decade ago. Looking back, it can be seen that the countries concerned made the right choice in setting their overall goals and policies for transition to a market economy, but the social costs have been high. Under the present economic and political conditions in the region, there is no alternative to the creation of a market economy based on private ownership. However, given the developments of the past eight years, it is clear that the initial expectations for transformation were overly optimistic and the transition process is far more complicated and complex than anyone imagined in 1991. The region's agrarian economy is still struggling to adjust to economic reality.This volume presents a fascinating overview of social assessments carried out in Central Asia and Turkey as they relate to the preparation of World Bank agricultural projects designed to support the transition of agriculture from a socialist, or semi-feudal, system to a modern market-conforming system. Taking a retrospective look at the agricultural transition in the region, one could come to the conclusion that the social aspects of the transition have been given short shrift. Increased social tensions created by the delayed reforms have brought these problems to the forefront of agricultural policy decisionmaking and have put pressure on the governments to solve them. This compendium not only provides a comprehensive review of the social problems emerging out of the transition in the regional rural sector, but it also identifies some of their root causes.