L'adaptation de l'agriculture de la RDA aux matériels à grand rendement : facilités mécaniques, difficultés agronomiques

Mechanical relief raising agronomic problems. In the 1970-ties, the development of cooperation between farms at the production level resulted in a farm restructuration. Large-scale farms were generalized all over the country. Spreading of chemicals and part of the heavy transports were taken over by specialized firms. The question raised in this article is whether this new organization is able to conciliate the two officially announced targets of industrialization and intensifying agriculture. The first part of our article describes recent stagnations in cereal yields per ha and earlier in root crop yields per ha and also the increased imports of cereals as animal feed. The second part shows the importance of full-time use of equipments in the constitution of large-scale firms and analyses the resulting contradictions both for labour employment and for soil fertility. Agriculture appears dominated by an industry which within the COMECON tends to devote an increasing part of its activity to large-scale equipments.