Agricultural policy and performance in Hungary

From a number of perspectives it is demonstrated that Hungarian agricultural development has been quite successful. Five decisions contributed to that success: collectivization via the carrot rather than the stick; transformation of cooperatives into the backbone of Hungarian agriculture; development of symbiotic conditions between socialist and private agriculture; decentralization of agricultural decisionmaking; and fostering of development of new institutional forms that contributed toward the rapid spread of technological advances. Personal incomes have become more dependent on profit; relative profit opportunities among agricultural commodities and markets have played an important role in determining input, output, and marketing decisions.