SOVIET COLLECTIVE FARMS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 45, 21 January 1938, Page 6

SOVIET COLLECTIVE FARMS.

Only ten years ago, tens of millions of Russian peasants with small holdings were tilling the land with primitive implements; these have now given way to 244,000 well-organised collective farms embracing 18,500,000 peasant householders. As far as the area under cultivation is concerned, 99.1 per cent, of the total area tilled by peasants was cultivated last year by the collectives, and the rest by individual farmers. The collectivisation and mechanisation of agriculture have made possible the application _of scientific methods in collective farms, and provided for the training of millions of peasants in the handling of agricultural machinery. Thus were prepared the conditions for last year’s exceptional harvest. The harvest yields of the past four years, and particularly the record crops gathered last year, testify to the establishment in the U.S.S.R. of a firm basis for agriculture. The Soviet Government i§ spending large sums for research work on selected seeds, and supplies seed loans to collective farms. Land departments choose the best State and collective farms to handle the production of the finest varieties of' seeds suitable for the different areas. A network of State seedtesting and seed selection stations has been organised, and State stocks of selected seeds of grain crops, amounting to 300,000 tons, have been established. The area under cultivation has been increased by nearly 30 per cent, compared with the pre-war figure. The total value of agricultural output in 1913, at 1926-27 prices, "was 6000 million roubles, while that for last year amounted to 16,000 million roubles. A satisfactory development _ in the Soviet countryside is the increased mechanisation of agriculture. An investigation carried out _in 80 per cent, of the collective farms revealed the vast changes that have taken place in. the last few years. In 1936, for instance, the capital expenditure of the collective farms reviewed was on an average 22 roubles per hectare cultivated. Before the beginning of mass collectivisation, for each hectare of land under cultivation bv peasants there was only 10.6 roubles’ worth of agricultural machinery, as compared with 18.6 roubles’ worth in 1932. Russian industry before the war manufactured only the simplest kinds of agricultural machinery, and those in small quantities. In 1936 the total production' of agricultural machinery, including tractors, reached 2260 thousand million roubles. The introduction of collectivisation and mechanisation has changed not only the methods of working, but also the whole life in the villages. The earnings of the village population have greatly increased. The village in the U.S.S.R. has been entirely transformed. Instead of more than 90 per cent, of illiteracy, poverty, and squalor, almost everybody is now able to read, new houses are being built and modern amenities are being provided. With its vast area of agricultural a*nd pastoral land, collective farming, or large-scale farming seems the correct thing, but it would not do for New Zealand with its limited area. Here it must be intensive, individual farming.