Publisher's Synopsis
A review of immediate policy options on a subject of broad international importance - how to feed the Soviet people in a time of collapse of Soviet central authority. Based on a Geonomics Fall 1991 seminar, 12 Western and Soviet experts argue that massive food aid from the West is, at best, a temporary solution. Short-term humanitarian aid must be combined with a long-term programme that reduces waste; develops the infrastructure, from roads to warehouses; replaces state-controlled distribution and prices with free trade and market prices; and empowers the individual farmer. Striving for the commercial viability of state and collective farms, rather than immediate agrarian privitisation, offers the best route to sustainable agrarian reform.;Contributors are Keith Bush, John Cavanaugh, Kenneth Gray, Elmira Krylatych, Vera Matusevich, Allan Mustard, Ivar Raig, Barbara Severin, Gelii Shmelev, Vladimir Tikhonov, Don Van Atta, and Karl-Eugen-Wadekin.
