What was the overall performance of the agricultural sector in the former Soviet Union?

Poor despite fertile land availability

The policy of "land to the tiller" is based on the belief that cultivators, or those who work on the land, will be more motivated to increase agricultural output if they have ownership rights over the land they cultivate. By owning the land, cultivators have a direct stake in the profits that can be generated from higher output. In contrast, tenants who do not own the land lack the same incentive to make improvements or invest in the land since the landowner would benefit more from any increase in output.

The significance of ownership in providing incentives can be illustrated by the example of farmers in the former Soviet Union. In the past, it was common to observe farmers packing rotten fruits together with fresh fruits in the same box, despite knowing that the rotten fruits would spoil the fresh ones and make them unsellable. This seemingly careless behavior can be attributed to the absence of ownership rights among Soviet farmers. Without land ownership, they did not enjoy the profits from good harvests nor bear the losses from poor ones. As a result, there was little incentive for the farmers to be efficient or take care in their farming practices.

This lack of ownership and associated incentives helps explain the underperformance of the agricultural sector in the Soviet Union, despite the presence of vast areas of highly fertile land.