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ficials who are intent upon making privatization of agriculture and 

 the development of what the Russians call the farmer movement 

 successful. But it is indeed a smsdl group of people at the highest 

 levels of Grovemment. 



Agrarian reform is underway in the country, and there is devel- 

 oping now a farmer movement which increases each month. The 

 last count — ^the March count was up to 214,000 farms, maybe a 

 half million farmers. 



But this grassroots farmer movement is pushing forward in a 

 very fragile political environment. This is a Government deeply di- 

 vided on agrarian reform and agricultural policy. There are three 

 or four strong reform-minded agencies, the Ministry of Agriculture 

 being one, the committee on land being another, AKKOR — the or- 

 ganization representing private farmers — being another, but they 

 are separate institutions which have agrarian reform policies that 

 are not at all market oriented that would retard the growth of the 

 farmer movement and which have support at the highest levels of 

 the Russian Government. So what you are ending up with is a Gov- 

 ernment deeply divided and a fragile environment for the farmer 

 movement. 



Now, there has been considerable, almost chaotic, change under- 

 way in Russia, but we should not interpret this — much of this 

 change as reform or transition toward a market-oriented agri- 

 culture. The growth of the farmer movement had very high goals, 

 Russian goals. Their goal for the end of 1992 was to have 30 per- 

 cent of the cropland in private hands. Currently, they have about 

 3 percent. Their goal was to have all the 25,600 state collective 

 farms reorganized at the end of 1992. Just a little over 19,000 have 

 submitted reorganization plans. 



I have spent some time looking into what exactly these reorga- 

 nization plsms mean. I am unable to conclude that these adminis- 

 trative changes are, in fact, effective changes in structure and 

 property rights within these farms. So I think we as a Government 

 and a community in the world have a responsibility to continue to 

 work with the reform movement inside Russia. 



There are some things that I think are working successfully to 

 raise awareness and education about market-oriented agriculture. 

 These include programs like the Cochran program, the farmer-to- 

 farmer programs that are just now getting up Eind operating. And 

 I should add, Mr. Chairman, that on days when I get very frus- 

 trated and despair about change, I am only a block away from 

 Brian Foster who is wilUng to listen to me let off a little steam 

 about things that might not be happening at the Ministry. 



Mr. Penny. Brian is also an eternal optimist. 



Mr. Infanger. Yes, very much so. 



Mr. Penny. I think that applies in Moscow. 



Mr. Infanger. I wsint him to stay there at least as long as I am 

 there. 



Let me conclude, Mr. Chairman, by saying if agricultural reform 

 is truly a priority goal for our Government in Russia — and I know 

 we have other goals — but if agricultural reform is truly a priority 

 goal, then we are going to have to do something to target our as- 

 sistance, our technical assistance and other assistance to support 



