Development of Intensive Agriculture Characterized by Continuous Growth and Increasing Social Security in the German Democratic Republic

One of the main problems of agriculture in most countries is how to ensure further increases in agricultural production to give the population better nutrition and to guarantee increasing social security to farmers and all those employed in agriculture. This occupies the farmers' minds, for it concerns their own vital interests and their position in society; at the same time it is a concern of society as a whole and one of the fundamental problems for agricultural research and particularly agricultural economists. In the socialist countries, the fundamental and also practical solution of this problem is a concern of society as a whole; all classes and strata of the population are involved. It is thus possible to solve without social conflicts the problem of raising agricultural production further and simultaneously increasing social security in the interests of farmers and all classes and strata. The experience and results gained in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) over more than 30 years indicate that, as in other socialist countries, socialist production relations guarantee farmers both lasting and secure prospects and a high level of social security. We see as a decisive prerequisite for the solution to this problem that the most important means of production be nationally owned and that socialist production relations extend to the relations between town and country. In the GDR, the fundamental conditions for basic social changes were created as early as 1945 with the defeat of fascism. In the subsequent years, social production relations developed first in industry, trade, and transport. It thus became possible to manage and plan the economy centrally with the enterprises being entrusted with a high degree of self-responsibility, and to guarantee, by integrating agriculture in this system, that the farmers could sell all their products at fixed prices. This advantage of the socialist planned economy was highly appreciated by the farmers. Supported by the State, and generously encouraged by the provision of credit, machinery, fertilizers, and other inputs, farmers gradually began in the early 1950s to organize their production on a co-operative basis. They perceived that only the establishment and further expansion of cooperative farms would allow the tasks of agriculture to be accomplished in the interests of both farmers and the society as a whole. Important elements were: reorganizing agriculture with a modern material and technological base and advanced farm structure; securing high growth rates of production and efficiency of agriculture; and raising farmers' social position and security as well as their standard of living. The successful development of GDR agriculture is the result of an agricultural policy that has always been developed and implemented in the interests of, and in co-operation with, the farmers.