Russian Harvest Lacks Transport

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30846, 3 September 1965, Page 11

Russian Harvest Lacks Transport

(N.Z.PA.-Reuter —Copyright) MOSCOW, Sept. 1. The Russian grain harvest, already expected to be a poor one, has been hit by another snag a transport shortage. Pravda reported yesterday that in some places in the vital Kazakhstan virgin lands, there were not even enough vehicles to take the grain off the combine harvesters. The Communist Party newspaper said the south of the Krasnoyarsk region had suffered from a summer-long drought and local officials were relying on the northern areas, bordering Siberia, to save the situation. Farmers there were working full out to bring in the harvest, but they were short of hundreds of vehicles.

; Farms were also short of spare parts for the vehicles they did have, and the regional agricultural machinery service organisation had done little to remedy the situation, the newspaper said. It was reported from Helsinki that because of the poor harvest, Russia bad offered Finland cattle fodder instead of the grain it was due to deliver under the 1965 trade agreement.

Finland was to Import 100.000 tons of Soviet wheat and 20,000 tons of rye this year.

A Finnish Foreign Ministry official said that the change suited Finland because her own grain stocks were plentiful.

The Pravda report on the transport shortage is after frequent complaints in the Soviet press of freak weather conditions affecting the harvest throughout the country.