Zvi Lerman

Hebrew University of Jerusalem | HUJI · Department of Environmental Economics and Management

The article examines the women’s role in Central Asian labor markets, including both formal and informal female employment, the feminization of agriculture in the region, gender gaps in education and wages, and constraints on women’s access to extension services and land ownership. This reassessment is designed to strengthen the qualitative approac...

Individualization of agriculture in the post-socialist space during the transition from plan to market: expectations, progress, and obstacles.

Agroholdings have become a major player in Russian agriculture in less than two decades. Nevertheless, there is no legal definition of agroholding as an organisation, and no statistical information on agroholdings as a distinct category is collected. Only informal definitions exist, which regard agroholdings as groupings of agricultural enterprises...

Chinese originally migrated to the Russian Far East (RFE) to fill a labor shortage on collective farms. In more recent decades, some Chinese migrants have chosen to lease land from Russian farmers to manage their own farms. Rising soybean prices and the trade war between China and the United States have increased demand for land capable of producin...

This article presents an analysis of the impacts of Chinese agricultural investments on land market in the Russian Far East (RFE). As a result of increasing soybean prices, China-United States trade war and close proximity of China and Russia, Chinese agribusiness entrepreneurs compete for land with Russian farmers in RFE. Chinese migrants fill a l...

This is the first study that painstakingly assembles a full list of more than 1,000 agroholdings in Russia and analyzes the corresponding data from the two agricultural surveys (2006 and 2016) as well as other official sources. The study examines the role of agroholdings in Russian agriculture and estimates some performance measures.

The classification of agricultural producers by legal-organizational form (agricultural enterprises, peasant (family farms), household plots and gardening associations), traditionally used by the Russian official statistics, is outdated and masks the dynamic changes that have taken place. Due to the lack of output and sales data in 2016 agricultura...

Agricultural cooperatives in Russia have had an uneven evolution: from their initial form of service cooperatives based on classical principles of cooperation in the decades before 1929, they evolved to predominantly production cooperatives during the Soviet era and then back to service cooperatives with the rapid decline in the number and share of...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718310226

Agricultural cooperatives in Russia have had an uneven evolution: from their initial form of service cooperatives based on classical principles of cooperation in the decades before 1929, they evolved to predominantly production cooperatives during the Soviet era and then back to service cooperatives with the rapid decline of the number and share of...

Russian agriculture has shown stable growth since 1999. Russia has re-emerged on the world arena as a food exporter and now ranks first in wheat exports. The food trade balance steadily improves and the share of imported food in retail markets is decreasing due to the government's import substitution policies. Domestic production is now close to sa...

A walk through a collection of graphs typically used in describing and analyzing structural changes in agriculture.

An overview of the developments in land and farm structure in Albania from the Ottoman period to the post-communist era.

The goals of Russia’s agricultural policies since 1989 can be divided into two periods corresponding to the reigns of the two presidents—Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin was one of the authors of land reform in Russia, and his land reform efforts dominated the period 1990 to 1999. Yeltsin’s reform policies were limited and inconclusive. Th...

The article reviews the development and the present status of smallholder farming in Central Asia's former Soviet republics. One of the striking features of the transition in CIS agriculture in general, and in Central Asia in particular, is the dramatic shift, since 1992, from the predominance of large corporate farms (“agricultural enterprises”) t...

The objective of the post-communist “land-to-the-tiller” reform in Albania that began in 1961 was to transform the agricultural sector from the Soviet model to a market-compliant model of the advanced Western economies. Contrary to other transition countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Albania did not restitute land to former owners but instead...

Most cooperatives in Kyrgyzstan are production cooperatives—successors of former collective farms. There are hardly any “pure” service cooperatives, although a survey conducted as part of this study reveals that production cooperatives partially fulfill the function of service cooperatives by providing farm services also to nonmembers. Most respond...

Allocation of sown land to main crop categories is presented in tables and graphs for each of the 11 CIS countries and Georgia. The data cover the period 1980-2015, including the last decade of the Soviet era and the first 25 years of transition

The file presents data tables with shares of livestock production in % of GAO by country for 11 CIS countries and Georgia. Crop production shares are the complement of the livestock shares to 100%. The data are followed by country graphs that show variation over time between 1980 and 2015.

Time series based on official statistical sources, showing total sown area and area sown to grain in 11 CIS countries and Georgia. The data are illustrated with graphs. A separate section compares sown area to arable land potentially available for crop cultivation.

Area of agricultural and arable land in 11 CIS countries and Georgia for 1980-2015, collected primarily from official statistical sources. Growth indexes of agricultural and arable areas are calculated by country and by region. The data are illustrated with numerous graphs showing development over the period 1980-2015.

Excel spreadsheets with the underlying data for the main pdf file.

Total and agricultural employment time series for CIS and Georgia for 1980-2015. The data are from official country statistics and include both self-employed and persons working for hire. The tables are illustrated with graphs.

Population and rural population series for 11 CIS countries and Georgia covering the long period from 1913 to 2015. The data are presented in graphs (for each of the twelve countries) and numerical tables. A separate sheet is devoted to a discussion of idiosyncrasies of population statistics of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.The long time series have...

Excel spreadsheets with underlying data for the graphs and tables in the main pdf file.

Long time series (1980-2015) for population and rural population in CIS and Georgia, including separate discussion of population statistics idiosyncrasies in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The data are generally from country official statistics.

Excel spreadsheets with underlying data for the main pdf file

A long time series (1965-2013) of gross domestic product index (1990=100) for 11 CIS countries and Georgia. Two tables are shown: 1990-2013 with GDP calculated in official country statistics according to accepted international standards; 1965-2013 splicing the 1990-2013 GDP series with the NMP (Net Material Product) series for 1965-1990 as publishe...

The file contains tables with the GAO index for 11 CIS countries and Georgia for two periods: 1965-2013 (base year 1965=100) and 1980-2013 (base year=100). The data for each period are presented country by country and also grouped for three regions: Trans-Caucasus, Central Asia, and European CIS. The data are intended to answer the need of research...

Persistent overborrowing in Israeli cooperative agriculture led to a severe financial crisis in 1986. The overborrowing may have been caused by the moral-hazard behavior and horizon problems inherent to cooperative organizations. This hypothesis is tested by examining the behavior of agricultural cooperatives in two culturally different environment...

In this chapter, we evaluate and analyse the outcomes of agrarian reform in the post-Soviet Russian Federation. The reform has led to a clear change in the agrarian system in Russia, but not all the population, especially not all rural people, have come out as winners. The observed increase in agricultural labour productivity has been accompanied b...

In the Soviet period, Turkmenistan specialised in cotton production. When the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a breakdown of agricultural trade links between the former Soviet republics, Turkmenistan could no longer rely on assured supplies of wheat in exchange for its cotton, and the food security situation deteriorated. The governm...

The most striking feature of land reform in the post-Soviet space has been the overall shift from collective to individual land tenure in agriculture, generally accompanied by privatisation of legal landownership. Individualisation of farming has been among the main factors that acted to arrest the initial decline in production during the transitio...

The chapter examines the outcomes of 20 years of land reform in the Russian Federation’s agriculture. The landownership structure is assessed, the risks voiced at the beginning of the reform are re-evaluated and new risks related to the development of landownership are highlighted. Russia’s land policy has gone through several stages since the begi...

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the wheat production developments in the Eurasian region and assesses the potential contribution of the region to domestic and international food security. In particular, the book covers policy and institutional developments of the agricultural sector in Eurasia with a special focus on the horizontal issue...

The increase in agricultural employment in Central Asia and Trans-Caucasus over the last two decades has had a detrimental effect on agricultural labor productivity and rural family incomes. Transition countries in the former USSR cannot, however, encourage exits from agriculture (as, for instance, in east Germany or the Czech Republic) due to the...

This volume presents a broad retrospective of the evolution of the idea of agricultural cooperation in transition countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia over nearly three decades, since the breakup of the socialist bloc in 1989-1991. The ten articles are all part of a concerted effort by international donor organizations to provide policy adv...

The presentation discusses policy measures and household-level tools that can be applied to alleviate smallholders’ vulnerability to risk. The measures include increasing land endowments, improving access to market services through cooperation, and encouraging diversification

The presentation focuses on sweeping individualization of farm structure and huge increases in wheat production in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Since 2007, the individual sector controls virtually all arable land and all livestock in these Central Asian countries. Individualization has had strong positive effects on agricultural output and has been...

Striking feature of agricultural restructuring in CIS in the sweeping individualization of agriculture, creating a large number of small family farms. Despite the small farm sizes, agricultural growth is faster in countries that have more land in individual use. Analysis of a wide range of farm surveys across CIS suggests four approaches to raising...

The three CIS countries in this study -- Belarus, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan -- are not significant regional grain traders. In most years these countries have small net imports, and production of wheat in the three countries has risen dramatically since 1992. This rise in production has been accomplished through huge increases in area, as well as...

The presentation examines the differences between the Western view of cooperatives and the view prevailing in post-Soviet countries. Changes in existing cooperative legislation in CIS countries and Georgia are suggested with the objective of harmonizing the disparate views.

The presentation is aimed at a Russian audience, comparing large vertically integrated agribusinesses in the West with agroholdings in Russia and Ukraine.

The agricultural service cooperative is a means for incorporating small farmers into value chains that include larger downstream middlemen, processors, markets and grocery chains. This chapter describes the development of agricultural service cooperatives in the large wheat producing countries of Kazakhstan and Ukraine, and analyses the reasons for...

Western view of production and service cooperatives is compared with the prevailing perception in post-Soviet countries

Changes in the Law of Cooperatives and the Civil Code of Kazakhstan are suggested with the objective of bringing Kazakhstan’s legal framework for cooperatives closer to the Western practice.

Individualization of agriculture has led to robust agricultural recovery in post-Soviet Central Asia. Small family farms have become the backbone of transition agriculture and their higher productivity contributed to the turnaround in agriculture. A new farming structure requires a new market infrastructure for farm services and government policies...

Since 1994 rural families in Ukraine have received land in private ownership, first in the form of land shares and then as physical plots. However, only a small percentage of the beneficiaries actually cultivate their land and contribute to food production: most simply turn around and lease their land, mainly to agricultural enterprises and peasant...

Across Eurasia there is an immense divide in the development of agricultural cooperatives between the countries of the European Union and those of the Commonwealth of Independent States and Georgia. This gap can be seen in the differences in the spread of cooperatives within agriculture, in government policy and in the enabling legislative environm...

After twenty years of transition, there are still not enough private entrepreneurs to satisfy the needs of the huge number of peasant farms and household plots, and smallholders often feel that they suffer from blatantly exploitative practices of private intermediaries due to lack of competition. Market-oriented scholars accordingly expected to see...

This article analyzes the implications of World Trade Organization (WTO) accession for Russian agricultural policy. Using Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data on producer support from 2010, we identify two major characteristics of Russian agricultural and trade policy (a) reliance on sizeable differences between world...

The presentation describes the views of rural residents on the proposed elimination of the moratorium on land sales and its possible effect on the development of land markets in Ukraine.

The five countries of the former Soviet Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan – have made huge strides in their efforts to reform tenure rights in agricultural land and change the traditional Soviet-style farming structure to a model closer to market principles. While much remains to be done in the area of...

The rural household component of the Tajikistan RICA survey carried out in 2002 covered 2,200 households selected from the country's four main regions. The survey has shown that land markets and credit markets virtually do not exist in Tajikistan to this date. Property rights are apparently evolving in the proper direction, as can be judged from th...

The presentation describes the need for the establishment of service cooperatives in Central Asian countries and reports some survey data on early attempts for the development of service cooperation in the region.

After a long period of agrarian reforms, the agricultural sector in Tajikistan is now largely individualized, with nearly 65% of arable land in family farming. This striking achievement of farm restructuring is one of the main factors responsible for the increase in the productivity of land and hence the robust recovery of agricultural growth in Ta...

This chapter is an analysis of data derived from several studies of the economic effects of land reform on rural families in Tajikistan. The history of land allocation after the dissolution of the Soviet Union is briefly reviewed, and the implications for agricultural productivity and rural incomes are discussed. Enlarging family land holdings and...

During the past three decades, China has undergone rapid urbanization, driven mainly by migration from rural to urban areas. Urbanization was accompanied by remarkably fast economic growth and has produced definite benefits for China’s population: GDP per capita is higher in provinces that have a higher urbanization rate. Yet it has also led to inc...

The rural sector in nearly all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has undergone a shift from predominantly collective to more individualized agriculture. At the same time, most of the land in the region has shifted from state to private ownership. These two shifts – a shift in tenure a...

The Return of Private Property: Rural Life after Agrarian Reform in the Republic of Azerbaijan. By Lale Yalçin-Heckmann. Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia, no. 24. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2010. xiv, 225 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. Figures. Tables. Maps. €29.90, paper. - Volume 71 Issue 3 - Zvi Lerman

The note reviews eight major legislative acts of the Republic of Tajikistan that have an implication for climate change policies. The Annex excerpted from a 2010 PALM -- Pamir-Alai Land Management report also discusses some proposals for future legislation and describes Tajikistan's environmental policies and programs.

Tajikistan, with 93% of its surface area taken up by mountains and 65% of its labor force employed in agriculture, is judged to be highly vulnerable to risks, including climate change risks and food insecurity risks. The article examines a set of land use policies and practices that can be used to mitigate the vulnerability of Tajikistan’s large ru...

Tajikistan is judged to be highly vulnerable to risk, including food insecurity risks and climate change risks. By some vulnerability measures it is the most vulnerable among all 28 countries in the World Bank’s Europe and Central Asia Region – ECA (World Bank 2009). The rural population, with its relatively high incidence of poverty, is particular...

Tajikistan is classified by the World Bank as one of the CIS countries that are most vulnerable to climate change risks. This paper provides a closer look at a set of variables that determine Tajikistan’s vulnerability to risk in general and to climate change risk in particular. After presenting some background information on Tajikistan (Chapter 1)...

Потенциал роста доходов сельского населения Туркменистана на основе альтернативных сельскохозяйственных культур The article advocates agricultural development as an alternative to reliance on oil and gas exports. To act as an engine for rural income growth, Turkmenistan's agriculture should move away from cotton and wheat monoculture and adopt a po...

This article pursues one of the threads of transition research by examining the changes in land and water use that are taking place in Turkmenistan and assessing their impact on the country’s agricultural sector. Turkmenistan is relatively inaccessible because of its isolationist political regime and little has been published on the process of tran...

In 1995-1996 the president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, launched a program of agrarian reforms that caused a sweeping and irreversible shift from Soviet-style collective agriculture to individual farming in his country. These reforms led to an impressive recovery and substantial productivity improvements in agriculture. The agrarian transition in...