Slim Pickings

The harvest falls short again

Food shortages are an irksome hallmark of daily life in the Soviet Union.

But this year the problems have come earlier and will last longer. Even in Moscow, the best supplied city in the country, shops are feeling the pinch, and many meat and vegetable counters are empty. In his economic report to the Party Central Committee last week, Leonid Brezhnev warned that the situation may get even worse. Although this year's wheat harvest was big enough to ensure the production of the 46 million tons of grain needed for Soviet citizens' annual consumption of bread, there may be precious little meat to go with it. Reason: the total grain harvest will fall far short of the 235-million-ton target, thereby causing severe shortages of livestock feed. This year's harvest is expected to yield only 181 million tons, just 2 million tons more than last year's total and well below the record 237 million tons produced in 1978. Soviet officials had said earlier this month that they expected a yield of 190 million tons.

The U.S.S.R. once again will have to go shopping for grain on the international market. If Washington continues its embargo, Moscow will be able to buy only 8 million tons from the U.S., under a bilateral grain agreement that remains in force until next September. Though the Soviets may be able to import as much grain as they did last year, when they made big purchases from Argentina and Canada, the experts believe that Moscow will still suffer a severe shortfall.

Even as Brezhnev was delivering his gloomy report, the U.S. and China were signing a four-year agreement that calls for the U.S. to supply the Chinese with between 6 million and 9 million tons of wheat and corn annually. The Chinese thus became a $1-billion-to $1.5-billion-a-year grain customer at a time when American farmers were complaining about the losses caused by the embargo to the Soviets--as Candidate Jimmy Carter was well aware.

In his report to the Central Committee, Brezhnev candidly discussed the "difficulties" of the Soviets' cumbersome distribution system. He warned that the government must "show more concern for increasing the production of goods and services for the population." One sign that the leadership takes the consumer seriously: the swift elevation of Mikhail Gorbachev, agriculture czar since 1978, to full membership in the Politburo last week. At 49, Gorbachev becomes its youngest member. Some experts believe that the Kremlin is digesting the lesson of Poland and wants to damp down potential discontent. Soviet citizens consume only 70% as much meat as the Poles, who went on strike over their own shortage. sb

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