Agricultural sectors in Eastern and Central Europe are large so that changes in producer prices, farm employment, and land ownership affect substantial numbers of people. In the past, food in the region was politicized. For decades, governments of Eastern European countries and the USSR offered...

Under administered prices through the fall of 1991, Russia's food distribution system broke down, and it was feared that the food supply would be inadequate in the winter of 1992 and thereafter. In January and March 1992, price ceilings were removed on most items sold in state-owned Russian...