Presumably desire for survival would suffice to motivate farmers (assuming farming is a terrible occupation that must be taken under duress and not in some ways inherently rewarding). I think the problem re: the Soviet examples is that the farmers whether on collectives or not were slaving for others. Obviously in that situation one would work better the better one was remunerated.
Its interesting that capitalist/US farms never get mentioned--Chiquita use death squads to keep their Colombian farmers motivated, as was reported extensively on DemocracyNow! two years ago. Presumably this is the most efficient method of all?
Incidentally, In the case of Cuba, it turned out the community garderns worked better than Soviet-style industrial agriculture. Cf. the documentary "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil". Obviously every situation is different.
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> I know I've mentioned Soviet agriculture before. The private land plots were much much much more efficient than the collective ones, presumably because the farmers were earning money doing it. As in, in 1960 private plots, while being 2% of total agricultural lots, produced 50% (!!!) of grain in the USSR.
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