RUSSIA'S GRAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 69, 19 September 1932, Page 7

RUSSIA'S GRAIN

DROP IN COLLECTION

OFFICIALS BLAMED

LONDON, 7th September.

The grain collections in Eussia during July and August were 50 per cent, below the estimates, reports the Moscow correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian."

The area sown up to Ist September was' 8,500,000 acres lower than last year, although the Five Tear Plan demands an, increase in the acreage of winter crops. The newspapers blame local officials, declaring that the failure was inexcusable, as the grain collection demands had been reduced, compared with last year, while the harvest was, better. Frequent stoppages of tractors, the utilisation of horses, and' a failure promptly to repair implements, caused slow sowing. The trouble was aggravated by a reauction of the Soviet output, of new tractors, owing to a lack of radiators. The Leningrad factory producing the necessary copper parts, consistently supplied parts unsuitable, and of vary:ing thickness, wth the result that the •daily tractor ' production figure's! were misleading, as many of the tractors were without radiators.