The rural transition – Landwirstchaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften and landscape before and after German Reunification (1990).

Abstract

This paper presents the case study of the MODSCAPES Technische Universität Berlin team: the Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften – LPGs (agricultural production collectives) of the former German Democratic Republic in the southern Oderbruch (Brandenburg). The paper is divided into two parts: The first discusses the planning and socio-economic theory of the LPGs developed by the East German state, and the ensuing spatial manifestations of these production—and eventually, settlement—schemes. Here, the major differences between the planned vision and the lived reality of these rural networks are highlighted. The second section analyses the post-Reunification development (after 1990), focusing on the former model LPG based in Golzow: we examine the legal procedures guiding the economic transition from socialism to capitalism, as part of the German Reunification (and inclusion in the European Community). We argue that in this period agricultural production has grown even larger in scale through new waves of modernization processes; and most significantly, that this subsequent wave of technological modernization capitalizes on the spatial legacy of the LPG.