THE REGENERATION OF FAMILY FARMING IN ESTONIA

This paper is based mainly on research in rural Estonia during 1991 an d 1992. With perestroika in the late 1980s and following Estonia's ind ependence in 1991, several thousand new family farmers have recently b een granted land from the collective and state farms. The effects of p olitical and economic change on all kinds of agriculture have been sev ere. Predictably, conflicts of interest between state and collective f arms and the new farmers have hindered the implementation of the refor m programme - the restitution of expropriated land to the former owner s and the reorganization of agriculture as an efficient productive and distributive system. Connected conflicts of interest are also emergin g between new owners of relatively large and productive farms and clai mants to former small holdings which are unlikely to be viable in mode rn conditions. It is significant that such smaller farms have largely disappeared in Finland and elsewhere under capitalism.