Smallscale peasant type farming has had varying importance in the course of time, but has always been part of rural economy. Following the change of regime in 1989-1990, the large scale farming structure founded during state socialism was dissolved throughout the Central and Eastern European region. Th ese changes led to the revival of the family farms. After the collapse of the socialist agricultural farm structure, the smallscale family farms became the most widespread farm type. Nonetheless, the new agricultural structure still faces conflicts. One of the most serious problems is the lack of manpower and capital coupled withobsolete production technologies. The extremely fragmented farmsmake farming ineffi cient. It seems that the traditional rural peasant society has been preserved, and only a few examples of ambition, project planning and risk taking ability can be spotted. In this paper I would like on the one hand to summarise the factors that determined the spread of smallscale landownership in Transylvania; on the other hand I would like to shed light upon the challenges posed by market economy based on a case study of a village (Siklód).

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