A Comparative Analysis of Trends in Agricultural Productivity in Central Asian Transition Economies

Conclusions The land, labor and total factor productivity indices analyzed in this paper present strong upward trends until 1990 and downward trends during 1991–1996 period, some recovering signs appears close to 1999. In all five Central Asian Republics, land productivity was much higher than labor productivity, which was achieved at a relatively high cost. In order to get self-sufficiency in food products, which were never attained during Soviet period, government has spent enormous amount of resources. However, they could not increase food production very much but managed increase land productivity in high cost. The sharp decreases in total factor productivity after getting independence in 1990 is a divergence from misallocation of resources. The misallocation also implies that inefficiency and unbalanced cost of production surrounded in the central planned agricultural system. As a result Soviet republics has always paid a higher cost for production and the increases in labor and land productivity than they counterparts from developed countries. The introduction new technologies in the Soviet Union have a minor role in agricultural growth. This tendency could be explained with the loss caused by resource misallocation and the result of factor substitution along to the production function.