Analyzes the transition of Russia's agro-food sector from a centrally planned system to a market-oriented one. This book features chapters that explain the initial conditions of transition, describe the measures undertaken, survey the current situation, and offer perspectives on how best to continue with the reform.

1 Introduction and Overview.- 1 Introduction and Overview.- 2 Where Does Russia Stand?.- 2.1 A Comparison of Agrarian Transition in Russia, China, and Eastern Europe.- 2.2 Russia’s Position within the CIS: A Cross-country Comparison.- 2.3 Russia’s Agro-food Sector: State of the Art.- 3 Policy and Macroeconomics.- 3.1 Sectoral Agricultural Policies and Estimates of PSEs for Russia in the Transition Period.- 3.2 Inflation and Exchange Rate Policies.- 3.3 The Role of the Agro-food Sector in the Macroeconomy: General Equilibrium Effects.- 4 Spatial Market Integration.- 4.1 Economic Consequences of Russia’s Internal Border.- 4.2 Regional (Dis-)Integration of Russia’s Agro-food Markets.- 4.3 The Effects of Disintegration: Regional Grain Production and Marketing in Russia 1992-1995.- 5 Trade.- 5.1 Russia’s Agro-food Trade and Trade Agreements.- 5.2 Russia’s Bilateral Agricultural Trade: First Results of a Partial Equilibrium Analysis.- 6 Subsistence Production and Consumption of Food.- 6.1 Poverty, Subsistence Production, and Consumption of Food in Russia: Policy Implications.- 6.2 The Role of Household Plots in Rural Areas.- 7 Evolving Food Marketing Chain.- 7.1 Effectiveness of Competition in Russian Food Markets.- 7.2 Vertical Integration in the Russian Agro-food Sector.- 7.3 New Players in Russia’s Food Marketing Chain.- 8 Institutional Issues in Rural Areas.- 8.1 Credit Markets in Rural Russia.- 8.2 Building Market Information Systems for the Agro-food Sector.- 9 Institutional Issues at the Farm-Level.- 9.1 Decollectivization and Restructuring of Farms.- 9.2 Organization of Russia’s Large Scale Farms.- 9.3 Agricultural Enterprise Restructuring in Russia, 1991-95: an Efficiency Analysis.- 10 Synthesis.- 10.1 Policy Conclusions: An Agenda.- 10.2 ResearchImplications: Beyond Transition.- Contributing authors.

`The book is well edited. Although most of the authors are not native English speakers, the papers are well written. ... The book is an informative, thourough and well-prepared review of the status of Russia's agro-food economy in the late 1990s. Its content and style make it accessible to anyone interested in transition agriculture.' European Review of Agricultural Economics, 27:4 (2000) `Everyone working in this area should study this more closely. Moreover, the book can be used as an excellent reference book for teaching a course on `transition economics'' Quarterly Journal of International Agriculture, 40:4 (2001)