Agriculture in Eastern European countries
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 25 January 1983 (23rd Sitting) (see Doc. 5002, report of the Committee on Agriculture). Text adopted by the Assembly on 25 January 1983 (23rd Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Concerned about the consequences for the world's food supply of the massive and rapidly growing food imports of the Soviet Union and a number of Eastern European countries forming the membership of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA) ;
2. Believing that it is in the interests of the international community - and in particular developing nations in desperate need of food - that the above group of countries should improve the level of efficiency of its agriculture ;
3. Convinced that these difficulties are essentially caused by excessive central planning, inadequate investment in agriculture, unrealistic price policies, a lack of personal motivation of farm workers, massive waste at all stages from harvesting to distribution, misleading statistics and, finally, the poor functioning of other sectors of centrally planned economies ;
4. Aware that the situation in countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania and the Soviet Union is even more serious than in countries that have introduced a measure of decentralisation and scope for individual initiative, such as Hungary and Bulgaria,
5. Considers that exports of agricultural products to CMEA countries can be of benefit to exporting farmers and the individual citizen in the importing country, and that they may, if conducted on a sound financial basis, contribute to stability in international relations ;
6. Calls upon its members to urge their national parliaments and their governments to use every opportunity in international fora or in bilateral contacts to promote agricultural reform in CMEA countries, allowing the shortcomings referred to in paragraph 3 above to be reduced or eliminated.
