History Politics Economy Industry Agriculture Foreign trade Transport Education Demographics Government structure Health and social welfare Mass media Resource base Religion Society Huge changes in agricultural practice were instituted under the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (a socialist republic which lasted from the communist revolution of 1948 until the Velvet Revolution of 1989).
Larger farms were organized on 3 levels of hierarchy which actually reduced worker participation in decision making.
A massive trend during the early part of the collectivization period was that younger workers left for better jobs in the cities and productivity fell.
Private farmers owned only 4,040 km2, consisting mainly of small farms in the hill country of Slovakia.
In 1982, however, the government introduced measures to encourage private small-scale animal breeding and fruit and vegetable cultivation.
The government hoped that a large proportion of demand for fruit and green vegetables, as well as for meat, would be satisfied in this way.
The second echelon of management in large cooperatives or state farms had responsibility for smaller operations in either a specific area or a particular branch of production.
The chairman of a cooperative or the director of a state farm held most of the power in the organization, and the subordinate levels were severely restricted in their decision making.
Even before World War II, industrialization in Czechoslovakia had substantially reduced the relative importance of agriculture in the economy.
Before the KSČ gained control of the government, Czechoslovak agriculture consisted primarily of small to mid-size family farms with an efficiency on a par with most of Europe.
By the early 1970s, the average farm income reportedly had reached parity with that of urban white- collar workers.
Producers were urged to meet the demand for meat that accompanied the rise in income levels of the population.
The major constraint to livestock expansion was a shortage of fodder and feed mixtures, although government pricing policies and the labor demands of animal husbandry also tended to deter efforts.
During the 1970s, progress was made in expanding the supplies of fodder and feed mixtures and the country's processing capacity.
However, it remained necessary to supplement the supply of feed and fodder through imports, which became increasingly burdensome because they came from non-communist countries and thus required payment in convertible currencies.
Record harvests in 1984 and 1985 made it possible to virtually halt grain imports, which had amounted to about 500,000 tons per year.