著者

Meike WOLLKOPF Hans-Friedrich WOLLKOPF

出版者

The Association of Japanese Geographers

雑誌

Geographical review of Japan, Series B (ISSN:02896001)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.70, no.2, pp.57-73, 1997-12-01 (Released:2008-12-25)

参考文献数

22

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The reunification of East and West Germany in the year 1990 signalled the start of a new chapter in the history of the German nation. This reunification took place in a legal sense through the accession of the previous German Democratic Republic (GDR) to the Federal Republic of Germany with its legal and democratic system and its membership in the European Union (EU) and in the military organisation of the NATO. In the short term sense in the economic and social sectors, this lead to an historically unprecedented process of transformation from the forty years of socialist planned economy to the Western style of market economy, which is primarily based on private ownership. This caused deep-rooted changes in the living conditions of almost every citizen of Eastern Germany. The social process of transformation hit the Eastern German agricultural sector with full force, thus causing a structural change. This was not simply a question of privatisation. The task at the same time was to develop the agricultural sector to adopt a market-orientated, internationally competitive, lasting and more environmentally tolerable position and to incorporate it within the EU agricultural policies. On the one hand, the previous course of the agricultural process of transformation in the new Federal States reveals tendencies to align with the West German and West European agricultural conditions, on the other hand however, there are also interesting peculiarities, including the quality of the company forms, unknown in Western Europe-small family farming companies side by side with privately-owned, large expansive companies in a broad range of legal forms. The privatisation of the land will be completed in the near future. However, the clarification of legal matters pertaining to the individual interests of ownership will stretch into the coming century. Family companies and large private agricultural companies are both subject in an equal manner to the competitive pressure of the national and international markets and only have a true perspective for the future if they are based on a stable clarification of land ownership. The agricultural use of the areas of land has changed considerably in comparison to 1990. In plant production-not least as a result of the EU market regulations-a trend towards more extensive utilisation has set in, involving a greater proportion of grain and maize and a marked reduction in root crop, fruit and vegetable production, even in the traditional East German cultivation centres. The East German livestock and agricultural products of animal origin have dropped by 50% in comparison to their previous levels. The East German Federal States are by far no longer self-supporting in terms of meat and dairy production. They are also supplied by the West European markets. The agricultural sector was forced to relinquish its previous stabilising position as a regional employer in the rural regions as a result of the redundancy of several hundred thousand agricultural workers. This lead to a severe level of unemployment and the dismantling of social functions which had been based on professional work. The consequences for the rural regions resulting from this cannot yet be predicted. Whereas the suburban rural municipalities in the close proximity of larger city growth centres developed in a positive and dynamic manner, the larger proportion of the rural municipalities with their often traditionally agricultural or commercial monostructures suffered considerable disadvantage, sometimes to the extent that their very existence has becone endangered. The state subsidies which have been distributed in a relatively generous manner up until now have only been sufficient to balance these deficits to a certain extent.