RUSSIAN WHEAT.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20180, 7 March 1931, Page 6

RUSSIAN WHEAT.

HUGE PROGRAMME FORECASTED - Amid the - conflicting reports emana-ting-from'Russia of the progress being made under .the five-year plan, there omerges<! bcctfsionally an , expression of opiAftn by an independent authority : wljich it would not be prudent to pass I without notice. ■ f' r OiiVy o# vthe'"latest' i'the - question .whether the. reorganisation - of the Russian wheat industry is likely to affect materially the world's wheat market is from the pen of .Dr. Marbut, chief of thetdivision of soil survejks of the United States Department \of Agriculture, which appeared in the January number of the "Geographical Review" of New York. The unexpectedly largo shipments of Black Sea grain last year; which - were. offered for ■ sale by the Soviet Uniop at whatever price' it could

bring prejudieally affecfed the wheat market, although the quontity was not„ large enough to swell the world's supplies materially. The extensive state farms,. which the Soviet is equipping with the lastest agricultural machinery so that they may be worked on a large ' scale, are estimated .to contain' 25,000,000 acres of good quality wheat shadowed under the . new Soviet" cxperi- > ment bo. realised,. Br. Marbut',,expects that Russia's exp6rt;of wheat in 1933 shquld* amount to .200,000,000 bushels. .In 1929 >the " Giant iFarm,the largest of ' the editing' State grain farms in Kussia: produted 12 bushels to the acre, which, however, wps regarded as a "somewhat low' yield." If the 2o million .acres 'grow wheat on the same pcale, the pro- ' duction.,will; reach 300,000,000 -bushels . a! yearr—a figure, which Dr. Marbut re- : as ''disturbingly" large.'' It' is .'contemplated that the total acreage wii] full cultivation in 1933, and Dr., Marbut feels justified in. assuming thai if expectations'are realised, Russia will then ,he <in a position to export more than the maximum amount of 'wheat she exported in- any year before tlie war. •