Abstract:

After the political and economic opening of Eastern Europe towards the West, many companies which wanted to become active in these new markets asked quite quickly for market data. If any qualitative or quantitative market data on farm structures, decision-making procedures, relations of the agricultural sector to preceding and following sectors were available at all, due to quick changes of old farm structures, this information could only be used as initial data for planning. Due to the radical changes in the new federal Lander the demand for actualized data is relatively high. Market research has to face new challenges because the basic situation for carrying out market surveys in Eastern European countries is different from that in Western Europe and because market research has to react flexibly to continual changes. The experiences taken as a basis by PRODUKT + MARKT for carrying out agricultural surveys in Eastern Europe are shown by the example of the former GDR. Planning of market research projects is made in 3 steps: 1- Analysis of the status quo of the population ( = structure of agricultural producers cooperatives) in November 1989. 2- Continuous observation of the restructuring process and extrapolation of structured data. 3- Adaptation of the market research instruments - as they are used in West Germany - to the respective situation in the former GDR,