RUSSIA’S GRAIN WEATHER FLUCTUATIONS CAUSE RECURRING CRISES

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33158, 23 February 1973, Page 8

RUSSIA’S GRAIN WEATHER FLUCTUATIONS CAUSE RECURRING CRISES

< By

ERICH STRAUSS.

an expert on Russian agriculture, writing in the Guardian") I Reprinted by arrangement)

The state of Soviet agriculture has again become a highly political subject. With rising living standards, consumers are clamouring i«>r more of the most valuable foods such as fruit and yegeta >h>. meat, md butter, cheese, and eg’g’s. Since the dismissal of some important hut essentially technical officials, the crisis has nov. claimed the Minister < i Agriculture himself. The .Minister. .Mr \. V Matskevich. " a " a veteran ot many battles in the past. He was .Mr Khrushchevs personal l>ete noire" and dismissed bv him in 1961, only to be reinstated within a few nionti s of .Mr Khrushchev’s fall. The fact that he has been replaced by Mr 1). Polyanski, a member of the governing body of the ( ommunist Party, indicates the importance attached by the top leadership to the situation.

In the main European | grain-growing areas of the Soviet Union a combination iof excessive winter frosts, summer drought and bad harvesting weather has cut wheat supplies and reduced the total grain harvest by 13 million tons below its 1971 llevel which was itself not particularly favourable. The I Government was able to off--1 set the whole shortfall in its home supplies by buying wheat on the world market, but this depleted the large stocks held in Canada and the United Slates and has had dramatic repercussions ion world grain prices. The dollar price of American wheat in Rotterdam is more I than half up on a year ago; las far as Britain is concerned. ; the increase was even steeper I because of the devaluation of sterling since June 1972. The price of other types of grain. ■ such as maize, has risen 1 roughly in the same proportion. i Bad offset by good I In a country of the dimensions ■ of the Soviet Union, with its extreme, “continental” climate, local crop failures are more the rule than the exception. Usually they are offset by good harvests in other parts; catastrophic conditions in all grain-growing areas occur relatively rarely. The last time this happened was in 1963. Last year, the harvest suffered most in the main grain-growing areas of the

European Soviet Union and fairly good crops were obtained in Kazakhstan. Siberia and the Urals. The large fluctuations in weather conditions and crops were one of the reasons why the Soviet planners chose five years as the time span for the original Five Year Plans, because good and bad harvests were expected to cancel out over this period. Since the middle sixties, crop production targets have actually been set in the form i of five-year averages; in the plan period 1966-70. grain production just managed to beat its target of 167 million tons for the period as a whole as the result of an exceptionally good crop in 1970. Modest target In the light of past experience, the target for the current period 1971-75 was by no means over-ambitious; the average grain output of 195 million tons was about one sixth up on 1966-70, com- ; pared with an increase of! well over a quarter between 1961-65 and 1966-70. As the ( crop in 1970 was 186 million tons, the target appeared well within reach, but 1971 produced only 181 million t tons and last year’s official total was 168 million tons.; With two years out of five; already gone, grain output during the next three years; would have to average 209 ( million tons in order to fulfil; the plan. This looks at the! moment most unlikely. The last occasion when ( the Soviet Union faced a severe grain crisis was in 1963, when output plummeted by almost a quarter to only 107 J million tons. This disaster discredited Khrushchev who was the .acknowledged architect of the country’s agricultural reconstruction after the death of Stalin and con-! tributed to his fall a year( later. The immediate damage! was minimised by massive grain imports from the West but the expansion of live-' stock production was ham-

pered for years: its 1962 level (was not regained in total until 1965 and the national pig herd (which was niest severely affected by the dis aster) exceeded its 1962 size for the first time in 1971 Investment backlog The present setback is not nearly so serious but Soviet agriculture still suffers from a relatively low volume ( >i production per head of the population, generally accompanied by high costs periodical food difficulties 'and limited raw material supplies for important con sumer industries. The long years of neglect and exploita lion of the land have created an enormous backlog of investment needs: during the last three years capital ; investment in agriculture was of the order of £22.000 million. But output in 1971 was no higher than in 1970. and in 1972 it actually fell by more than 41 per cent Even though this was largely due to bad weather, it means ‘ that in spite of the increase in capital investment Soviet agriculture remains far too dependent on a capricious and severe climate. Yet it is difficult to believe that the recent change of Ministers will lead to a radical change in policies which have been pursued ever since Stalin’s death 20 years ago. The Soviet Government will probably continue to pour more resources into agriculture, even though the return may remain for some time depressingly low. In spite of the difficulties in the harvest field, supplies of most types of food through the public trade system (with the exception of vegetable oil) have actually gone up in 1972, though there is a sub stantial unsatisfied demand for some important foodstuffs. But the Soviet consumer, who has had to be patient for so long, will again have to accept jam tomorrow for some years longer than he could fairly have expected.