The few banks that exist do not make personal or small business loans, nor do they provide checking accounts, credit cards and ATMs. In 1995, a credit union was formed in Uzhgorod that services many of the farmers I met. Because they are unfamiliar with savings institutions and understand little about basic economic concepts like interest, people feel more comfortable investing their money directly into home improvements and home building. This makes it difficult for people to build their farming operations, since even minimal capital is required to build a greenhouse or purchase a quality rototiller. With the hoped-for land reform and break up of collective farms, people will need additional capital to buy land from those who will be given land but are not interested in farming more than the acre or so they already farm.
Collective farms are common throughout the region.
Instituted in 1948, Koomyata has a 700 hectare collective farm that provided food for the village and then for the region. Forty women and ten men work this land manually, raising two hundred hectares of perennial crops, with the rest of the land in grain and vegetables. In low- capital intensive agriculture for vegetables, the recommended ratio of people to land is one person for every one hectare. In the past, Soviet planners had provided money for seed, fertilizer and equipment, and placed orders with the farm to produce so many hectares of specific crops for a guaranteed market. Since independence, the collective farm manager has struggled with the switch to the new market economy.