Agricultural Research and Education System in Belarus A need for a decentralized and market-oriented approach Dr. Oleg Nivievskyi and Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Ulrich Koester Consultant: BE Berlin Economics GmbH Schillerstr. 59 10627 Berlin Germany Tel: +49 30 206 134 640 Fax: +49 30 206 134 649
[email protected] Client: Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Germany Mandatory: GFA Consulting Group, Germany © 2012 BE Berlin Economics GmbH. All rights reserved. 1 Executive Summary At first glance, the performance of agriculture in Belarus seems to be outstanding in comparison with other CIS countries. However, a more detailed analysis that takes into consideration not only output development but also resource use, leads to a less favorable picture. The huge inflow of investment accompanied by new technology in recent years has not improved factor productivity as expected. Many farms could not keep up with the pace of technical change and could not improve their efficiency under the new technologies. In other words, despite better equipment, machines, animals, plant varieties and variable inputs at their disposal, the farmers produced a smaller percentage of the maximum output possible with these new machines than with old ones. On these farms, it seems that management ability, training and education are scarce factors that do not allow keeping pace with the rate of technical change. The report is based on the assumption that the performance of the agricultural sector and the agribusiness sector could be