Hans Bayer, Planung in der Landwirtschaft (1949)

Hans Bayer’s journal article evaluates the Austrian Ministry of Agriculture’s newly published four-year programme, prompted by the Marshall Plan, against the requirements of the economy as a whole. Its three sections examine production targets, implementation, and agricultural labour. Bayer takes the necessity of planning as established; his concern is whether its objectives and instruments are economically and socially coherent. He begins with a criticism of European industrial expansion: countries seeking simultaneously to export manufactured goods and import raw materials disregard the limited capacity of international markets. Agricultural planning must therefore participate in coordinating economic development rather than pursue a separate sectoral programme.

Es liegt also eine der wichtigsten Aufgaben der Wirtschaftsplanung, die freilich nur selten erkannt und hervorgehoben wird, in einer harmonischen Gestaltung der industriellen und landwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung.

English translation: Thus one of the most important tasks of economic planning, admittedly only rarely recognized and emphasized, lies in harmoniously shaping industrial and agricultural development.

This coordination requires attention to natural conditions, foreign production, domestic and export markets, and industry’s interest in low living costs. Bayer’s objection is not principally that the ministry proposes insufficient output. Although comparisons with depressed 1948 production suggest substantial increases, the targets largely restore the levels and composition of 1934–1938. Projected cattle and pig numbers remain below that earlier benchmark. He questions the selective presentation of comparisons, but distinguishes this statistical issue from the programme’s fundamental weakness: restoring an inherited production structure without reassessing its economic justification.

Es ist also nicht richtig, einfach den Zustand von 1938 wiederherstellen zu wollen.

English translation: It is therefore not right simply to seek to restore the situation of 1938.

For Bayer, recovery cannot mean reproducing branches of agriculture previously maintained at considerable cost to the national economy. Increasing world grain production and falling wheat prices make market conditions central to decisions about what Austrian agriculture should produce. He favours branches with relatively advantageous costs, while recognizing that farms are organic units whose activities cannot always be radically rearranged. Adjustment nevertheless remains necessary in arable farming, horticulture, livestock raising, and dairying. His reference to Ernst Jaggi’s Swiss research supplies a methodological alternative: production policy should begin with farm accounts and cost analysis. Austria should use its available accounting evidence and extend that evidence base rather than let historical output determine future priorities.

The implementation section turns this criticism into an examination of investment sequencing. The programme envisages nearly five billion schillings of investment, but Bayer argues that expenditure directed towards inappropriate objectives will partly constitute misinvestment. He notes the imbalance between substantial provision for viticulture and much smaller provision for alpine improvements, acknowledging the ministry’s explanation that vineyards suffered extensive war damage. His strongest example concerns the approximately 1.7 billion schillings assigned to machinery. Fragmented holdings, dispersed strips, and short annual periods of machine use can make mechanization uneconomic. A sowing machine on a small farm may require more preparation time than actual field work.

So notwendig die Kostensenkung in der österreichischen Landwirtschaft ist, so muß im allgemeinen eine weitergehende Mechanisierung der Landwirtschaft wirkungslos bleiben, wenn nicht vorher die Kommassierung (Bodenzusammenlegung) entsprechende Fortschritte gemacht hat.

English translation: However necessary cost reduction in Austrian agriculture is, further mechanization of agriculture must generally remain ineffective unless land consolidation has first made corresponding progress.

Modern equipment consequently depends on prior institutional and spatial reform. Yet the programme allocates only 44 million schillings to consolidation and proposes bringing just 37,000 hectares into it over four years. Bayer also finds no adequate response to resistance from individual landholders. His criticism concerns the conditions under which investment becomes productive, not machinery as such.

Cooperatives form the other neglected institution. The programme provides no distinct investment allocation for them, citing insufficient time to assemble projects and estimate expenditure. Bayer finds this inadequate where other estimates are themselves approximate. Cooperatives can maintain irrigation installations, organize production, and reduce distribution costs through collaboration between agricultural marketing cooperatives and consumer organizations. This connects his institutional argument to his criticism of price policy. The programme insufficiently considers costs and competitive markets when choosing production targets, then demands selling prices that cover the resulting costs. Bayer accepts that supporting agriculture may require sacrifices, but insists that investment should minimize them through lower production costs and narrower producer–consumer price margins.

The final section makes labour conditions integral to economic restructuring. The programme recognizes rural depopulation—approximately 180,000 agricultural workers lost since 1930—but offers no sufficient remedy. Bayer argues that structural adjustment and cost reduction must support wages adequate for workers and their families. Remuneration includes housing as well as money and food; he therefore criticizes the absence of a housing allocation. Direct state assistance is necessary, but locally adapted self-help, illustrated by settlement cooperatives in Tyrol, remains decisive.

Eines aber sollte besonders gezeigt werden, nämlich der enge Zusammenhang zwischen den Problemen der Produktionssteigerung und der sozialen Frage.

English translation: One thing, however, was to be shown above all: the close connection between the problems of increasing production and the social question.

Bayer closes by urging agriculture to anticipate social change rather than repeat the missed opportunities of the medieval craft guilds. His family-cake analogy presents a larger economic basis as a means of easing distributive conflict. The article’s central contribution is thus to connect production, costs, institutions, and labour welfare: agricultural planning succeeds only when productive improvements serve the wider economy and create better conditions for resolving agriculture’s social problems.