Behind the Current Russian Grain Woes

To inspire an extra effort down on the Kochenevsky state farm, the Communist Party has created a new title, "Hero of Threshing," which will be awarded for outstanding performance. Riding atop their huge Niva combines, Soviet farmers last week were rushing to harvest the grain crop, and from the Ukraine to Siberia, extra trucks were being pressed into service to speed the wheat, corn, rye and barley to storage areas before fall rains cause spoilage. Despite the frantic efforts, the Soviet harvest is expected to fall at least 25 to 30 million tons short of this year's goal of 215 million tons--forcing the U.S.S.R. into foreign purchases that are jarring world markets and causing political turmoil in the U.S. (see THE NATION).

The 1975 shortfall, the second major Soviet grain crisis in the past four years, raises a basic question that has bedeviled the commissars since Lenin's days: Why is the Soviet Union unable to feed itself? U.S. Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz last week had a ready explanation: "There is no greater folly than to try to dictate agriculture policy from the political arena. Centralized decision making doesn't work--it never has and it never will."

The planners fouled up again this year. Under intense pressure from Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev to raise more grain for livestock, they set the total grain harvest goal at an overly optimistic level that would have nearly equaled the record 222 million tons achieved in 1973. Even if the present crop reaches only 180 million tons, it still would be the fourth largest Soviet harvest in history. But having allocated so much acreage for grain to be fed to cattle and poultry, Soviet planners now find that they did not have enough left over to comfortably feed the people.

Aside from such bureaucratic bungling, the 1975 harvest has fallen victim to the two enduring villains of Soviet agriculture. They are:

BAD CLIMATE. Unlike the bulk of U.S. farm land, more than 60% of Soviet grain fields lie far above the 49th parallel (see map), where rainfall is sparse, the sun less powerful and the growing seasons short; frost hits large tracts in Siberia in early September. According to Soviet farm authorities, favorable weather conditions prevail about once every four years. This year there were two damaging developments. A freakishly warm winter failed to provide the essential protective coat of snow for the winter wheat, hurting the crop. Then, just as the spring plantings of corn and wheat were sprouting, a hot June parched the shoots, stunting the yield.

FARM INEFFICIENCY. Though the Soviet press has not directly mentioned the size of this year's shortfall or of grain purchases from abroad, it is filled with complaints about the troubles of farmers. Many articles lament the woeful state of Soviet farm machinery and the lack of spares. By one count, 450 harvesters in three Novosibirsk districts alone are laid up at present for want of parts. Krokodil, the satirical weekly, recently ran a cartoon showing a farm worker running a lottery to get a spare part for his thresher. Pravda complained that harvesters manufactured at the Krasnoyarsk plant in Siberia are so sloppily assembled that more than half have to be fixed at farm repair shops.

Soviet farmers have few incentives to work harder. Their wages average $165 a month, v. $208 for the typical industrial worker. Living conditions and educational opportunities are far more primitive in the countryside than in the cities, causing a continual migration of ambitious farmers into industrial jobs.

The Soviet Union is making huge new investments in fertilizer plants. Nonetheless, Soviet farmers still lack soil additives. Further, Soviet farm managers are relatively unschooled in such important crop-producing techniques as soil conservation, herbicide use and pest control--a legacy of the decades during which the head of a collective farm was most often not its best manager but its most politically reliable Communist. As a result, a Soviet farmer produces only one-tenth as much grain as his U.S. counterpart. Reports a member of a U.S. Agriculture Department team that studied Soviet farms last month: "The managing staffs of the large farms are being upgraded, but still, compared with the good top farmers in the West, they just don't have it."

Despite the lower 1975 harvest, the Soviet consumer is unlikely to feel the difference, either in his stomach or his wallet. Rather than cut back on livestock and poultry output, Soviet leaders have elected to sell gold worth $636 million to get the cash to buy grain abroad. The ironic result is that although American consumers may be forced to pay more for food as a consequence of Soviet grain purchases, Soviet citizens will enjoy bread at artificially low fixed prices. They range in Moscow from 6-c- for a 1-lb. loaf of tasty black bread to 29-c- for a loaf made of the finest white flour, probably milled from U.S. grain.

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