GRAIN FOR RUSSIANS KHRUSHCHEV’S SUCCESSORS TURN TO WESTERN MARSHES

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31087, 16 June 1966, Page 14

GRAIN FOR RUSSIANS KHRUSHCHEV’S SUCCESSORS TURN TO WESTERN MARSHES

[By

ALICE OBERG

5 of tht "Economist")

If you want a sad demonstration of a great country s inability to solve the problem of feeding itself,.look at Russia. The Russians, having plunged eastwards into a near-desert in their search for more grain, and having failed to find it, have now plunged westwards into a near-bog The world’s first Communist country is still unable to solve this most basic of men’s needs.

Mr Khruschev in his day, poured millions of roubles and man-hours into the virgin lands of Siberia in a one-shot attempt to solve Russia's agricultural problems. It was an extravagant mistake, and it helped unseat Mr Khrushchev from his job. Now Messrs Brezhnev and Kosygin have to extricate themselves from the inheritance. Ironically, they seem to have decided quietly to abandon the attempt to open up new farm land in the east of the Soviet Union only to try the same exercise in the west—in the marshlands of Smolensk and White Russia. Why? Shopping For Wheat Admittedly, something had to be done—and quickly. Even now Russia is not able to meet its grain requirements from its own farms, much less fulfil its export commitments to its friends in eastern Europe. The 1963 crop was disastrous; 1964’s only just all right. Last year the harvest was down by a fifth, forcing Russia once again to shop for vast quantities of wheat from the capitalist world. All this is not only humiliating for the world’s second most powerful nation. It is costly. To pay for unplanned imports of grain Russia’s leaders have to dip deeply into the country’s gold stocks. They also have to cut back planned imports of industrial equipment. This is the situation now. And without new policies it

would have got worse. Russia's grain requirements are growing. The drive to raise meat and dairy production is stepping up the need for the soft fodder grains. The growth of the population is increasing the need for the hard bread grains. Russia’s population now is some 236 millions. By 1970 it is expected to reach 250 millions. Soil Erosion At the same time the productivity of the virgin lands is expected to go on falling. Mr Khnishchev’s successors were warned by their experts at a central committee meeting a couple of weeks ago that the development of the Siberian acreage has been badly undermined by soil erosion. For this reason yields from the virgin lands have been declining since 1958. Many experts think that the whole area threatens to turn into a vast dustbowl; they think the land receives too little rain or snow over long periods to sustain crops indefinitely.

The Russian leaders can doubtless hope to reap useful harvests from Siberia for a few years yet: the virgin lands still produce some 15 million tons of grain a year. But they are well aware that future requirements will more and more have to be met elsewhere.

To meet the challenge Mr Brezhnev and Mr Kosygin had three broad choices. First, they could choose to cut their losses in agriculture: they could decide to concentrate the country’s scarce investment resources on industry and go on meeting a large part of their grain requirements from imports from the West. Both according to Russia’s own statistics and according to western estimates, Russia's industrial growth has been flagging since the 19505. Mr Khrushchev's switch of resources into agriculture—for such disappointing returns —-was clearly one factor behind this slowdown. Supply And Demand But there are powerful objections to a policy of industry first. It would require admitting that under communism Russia's vast countryside cannot produce all the food it needs. It would also require a far-reaching shake-up of the country’s industrial structure to make Russian goods fully competitive in western markets. Mr Brezhnev and Mr Kosygin have already faced up to the need to inject a bit of supply-and-demand economics into Russia’s creaky centrallycontrolled industry. But they are setting about these reforms very cautiously indeed. They are not going to be hurried into revolutionary changes overnight.

The second choice would be to raise the productivity of the traditional agricultural areas of western Russia,

which contain some of the richest soil in the world. This would mean a heavy investment effort. But it would also require revolutionary changes in the organisation of the countryside. This is probably the real objection to this approach. Suggestions that small groups of peasants be allowed to own the land they work on have been voiced in Russia. But the Communists are not likely to undo collectivisation yet. Improvement Drive So Instead of revolution in the factories or on the farms, Russia’s leaders have opted for a compromise. Some institutional changes have been made to raise the productivity of the collective farms. Regular salaries are being introduced; light industries are being set up to provide employment in offseasons. But the major effort is going into an extensive land improvement drive and a new attempt at outright land reclamation. An ambitious programme of Irrigation has been launched in parts of the Ukraine and Uzbekistan, and the party hopes to reclaim land from the Pinsk marshes of Smolensk and White Russia. Land development there stands a better chance than the Siberian adventure. The soil is richer and the weather more dependable. But the Russians may be indulging in a certain amount of wishful thinking. The target is complete independence from the West by 1975. Mr Khrushchev promised that too.