Agriculture and employment the results of the transition in hungarian agriculture

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyse the Taylorist principles of labour organisation - a system also adopted by the communist leadership and the ideologists of the soviet regime - which became the dominant practice in large scale farming in Hungary before the transition. The paper will focus on highlighting the factors that played a major role in determining the labour organisation of the industrialized agricultural holdings and will review the successes and failures of the development model together with the persistence of the principles in agricultural production after the transition. Following the transition in 1990, as a result of the changes in organisational structure and ownership, a highly problematical agrarian model came into existence in the Hungary. The past two decades have witnessed dramatic changes in Hungarian agriculture since arise in economic inactivity in rural areas and a significant decrease in labour-intensive crop production coincide. One of the more significant findings to emerge from this study is that in Hungary food industry plays a major role in providing stable rural employment and in ensuring food safety.