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Soviet Farm Mechanization in Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Folke Dovring*
Affiliation:
College of Agriculture, University of Illinois

Extract

The Soviet Paradox of high mechanization and continuing intensive use of hand labor in agriculture has been commented upon many times. For its level of capital intensity, Soviet agriculture is easily the least productive in the world. The purpose of this paper is not to elaborate anew on these well-known oddities or their consequences for the current and prospective (short-run) supply of farm goods in the USSR. The problem here is: Given the collectivist ideology which found expression in the collective-farm and state-farm systems, what will mechanization ultimately do to the farm system? In countries with advanced farm mechanization and effective use of capital, such as the United States, the farm labor force tends to become rather small; a similar development is clearly under way also in western Europe.

Information

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1966

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