In the distant 90s, I happened to get on a collective farm, where I got a job as an agronomist. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed and cost accounting was introduced, the supply system ceased to exist.
There was a proposal for the farms to start paying for themselves. The economy included plantations of fruit trees, a fruit nursery, land, farms for breeding cattle and birds. He also had a fleet of vehicles, workshops, a chemical warehouse.
All this was in working order, workers and specialists were working on the collective farm. But calculations have shown that all agricultural sectors do not pay off, and even bring losses. A similar situation was observed even in the Krasnodar Territory, famous for its favorable conditions for farming.
It goes without saying that we are talking about optimization. However, it ultimately led to the absolute destruction of the economy.
What triggered this situation? Where did the government go wrong? There was an acute food shortage in the country, i.e. there was a normal demand. Nothing stood in the way of growing food and selling it. It can be assumed that prices in those days were not too high. And where did the deficit come from? I think the answer lies in the lack of a solvent population.
People were so poor that there was no question of a return on production. In addition, the products produced were of rather poor quality.
It can also be assumed that due to periodic humanitarian aid, prices could not rise high. It is possible that the quality of management did not reach the normal level, and the workers simply performed the assigned tasks. You need to grow 5 tons of potatoes - they did. The state takes all this and does not look at how high-quality the product is.
But here the conditions were toughened for people: they themselves had to guess what products would be in demand, sell all this themselves, calculate profits and losses, purchase equipment and machinery.
The collective farm where I worked could not fit into such a system. It did not work for ordinary workers to embark on a new, improved path. We did everything as before. We have two tractors turned into one, similarly with cars. As a result, there was a shortage of working equipment, and incomes fell sharply.
To make changes to a farm that bred animals, to reshape it into fruit growing, huge sums of money were required. Only beekeepers managed to stay afloat. Perennial plantations remained at their disposal. We turned out to have catastrophically few resources.
Today the farm does not even have an office building. Someone bought it, demolished and built a dwelling house on the vacated land. Currently, there is an opportunity to erect a building on a bare wasteland. If you take a lump sum on bail, you can buy cattle, plant fruitful trees, plow the land, sow. Those. organize a farm from scratch.
But you cannot predict what the results will be. Maybe all this will not pay off, but only bring losses. Probably no one dares to build new collective farms. The risks are too big.
In any case, cost accounting became the cause of the destruction. When people began to count, agriculture gradually sank. It turns out that the calculations were superfluous and led to the death of collective farms.
Thank you so much for reading the article to the end! I will be glad to your like 👍 and subscribing to the channel.