And the Thunder Roared
JUDY, RICHARD
KHRUSHCHEV'S NEW AGRICULTURAL PROGRAM And the Thunder Roared By Richard Judy "When the thunder doesn't roar, the peasant doesn't pray." Thus does an old Russian aphorism express the...
...The two-year plan for 1964-65 calls for a great increase in the deliveries of tractors, trucks and other equipment to agriculture...
...The plan also calls for the output of chemical herbicides and insecticides to increase by 650 per cent before the decade ends...
...today he produces enough to feed himself and about 45 others...
...Most fertilizer available to Soviet fields has gone under fibre and oil crops...
...Tractors and trucks replaced the horse...
...Soviet agricultural experts estimate that about 25 per cent of Soviet fertilizer is lost en route to the field...
...Many of the ills of Soviet agriculture can be traced to the very low priority accorded it by the Soviet leadership...
...American agriculture passed that mark in 1900...
...If this is done and if facilities for transporting, storing and applying the fertilizer are supplied, the prospects for grain production are good...
...While heavy field work has been mechanized, most post-harvest operations are done by hand...
...Deliveries of fertilizer for grain crops are to rise from their previous very low level to 10 million tons in 1964, 15 million tons in 1965, and 30-35 million tons in 1980...
...The first problem, of course, will be to mobilize the required 10.5 billion rubles...
...insecticides and herbicides banished bugs, killed weeds, and silenced the Spring...
...Given the size of the Soviet economy and the high priority that has been accorded the fertilizer program, there is no insuperable obstacle preventing fulfillment of the plan...
...But Soviet national income should be nearly 300 billion rubles by 1970...
...With the population expected to rise from 226 million on January 1, 1964, to 250 million by the end of the decade, the need for more food is pressing...
...The engineers replied that they were not to blame, since no one would provide them with experimental facilities upon which the designs might be tested...
...Where there is insufficient moisture, the benefit of fertilizer on crop yields is likely to be small...
...The projected growth of agricultural chemistry will demand heavy investments...
...The Soviet farm problem, on the other hand, arises not from surplus but from shortage...
...If the Soviets follow through with their announced chemical and agricultural program, and if rainfall is adequate, it is indeed possible that both the 1965 and 1970 targets will be met...
...These mounds of fertilizer slowly erode away and, according to Nikita Khrushchev, small boys sled down them in the winter...
...Accusing fingers were pointed at designing engineers who erred in their calculations and botched the technical documentation of new installation...
...and by 1970, he contended, it would climb to 80 million tons...
...in some cases, a sledge hammer may be needed to dislodge it from the boxcars...
...The revolution in agricultural technology has in fact barely grazed Soviet farming...
...Most Soviet fertilizer is made in the form of powder...
...The average Soviet peasant today feeds himself and only seven comrades...
...grains received little...
...At last month's plenum meeting of the Party's Central Committee, Khrushchev announced that chemistry would be the savior of Soviet agriculture...
...Most of the grain producing areas of the Soviet Union are climatically similar to areas in the United States and Canada where little fertilizer is used because of limited rainfall...
...This sum well exceeds the 6.7 billion rubles invested in the idle and virgin lands during the 1950s...
...Even the most basic sorts of equipment—e.g., tractors and combines—are not abundant...
...Imports of chemical plants would help overcome strains on the Soviet designers and builders of these facilities, but they are not indispensable...
...Thus, on only about one-third of the Soviet grain acreage it can be expected that fertilizer will give good results...
...Frequently, the pile of fertilizer is allowed to stand for a time on the spot where it was dumped...
...The primitive state of the road network in the Soviet Union retards regional specialization and hinders deliveries of needed materials to the farms...
...And agricultural chemicals have now been defined as just such an objective...
...In the United States, output per agricultural man-hour has increased by about 150 per cent since the end of World War II...
...Ten years ago, in the first years after Stalin's death, a similar urgency to raise food output boosted Soviet agriculture to high priority...
...specialized machinery for field work and handling materials replaced the scoop shovel, pitchfork and hoe...
...The average fertilizer dose per acre is less than one-fifth the American level, while Soviet grain yields average 60 per cent below those in this country...
...Large and specific appropriations to chemistry and agriculture are mentioned in the 1964-65 budget...
...Even when the fertilizer finds its way to the field, it often gives less than optimum results because it fails to meet the needs of the local soil...
...Besides obesity, this agricultural abundance has brought the American people surpluses, subsidies, and social problems...
...Will the agricultural chemicals and machines achieve the desired results if they are produced in the planned quantity and quality...
...Loading and unloading are done manually, and horses and wagons haul most loads on Soviet farms...
...If chemistry and agriculture continue to enjoy their present high priority, there appears to be little doubt that the investment plan can be met...
...The 1963 crop failure was ultimately the result of uncooperative nature, not incompetent management...
...Production plans for fertilizer have often gone unfulfilled in the past and lack of fertilizer has been an important reason for low Soviet grain yields...
...The growth of heavy industry and military power has always taken precedence over agriculture as well as other sectors oriented toward the consumer...
...In addition, the Soviet chemical industry supplies agriculture with a grossly inadequate quantity of herbicides, insecticides, and veterinary pharmaceuticals...
...Plans call for a total of 10.5 billion rubles to be invested in agricultural chemicals during the next seven years...
...it soon hardens into one of the white mounds to be seen near many provincial rail stations in the Soviet Union...
...Although fertilizer output has increased in recent years, the amount actually applied to fields has grown more slowly due to large fertilizer exports and losses between factory and farm...
...Bulk fertilizer is shipped in railway boxcars and at its destination it is often simply dumped onto the ground along the siding...
...Anti-biotics and feed supplements boosted livestock production...
...It is unreasonable to expect that the application of fertilizer to Soviet grain crops will have the same positive effect as it has in the United States...
...This is a somewhat more doubtful proposition...
...Farms are to get fertilizer applicators, storage facilities and livestock equipment...
...over three-fourths of the equipment models currently manufactured are said to be inappropriate to their tasks...
...Their strategy is a radical program to drag Soviet farms into the 20th century...
...The main objective of the new policy for agriculture is to raise grain yields from 16.5 bushels per acre in 1962 to 18.8 bushels per acre in 1965...
...More than 100 new and modernized types of equipment are promised...
...In 1930, the average American farmer fed himself and 11 others...
...Mineral fertilizers brought greatly increased yields...
...The new two-year plan for 1964-65 very clearly emphasizes that chemistry— especially agricultural chemistry— has top billing on the Party scale of priorities...
...Transportation off the farms may be done by truck, but these are in short supply...
...Each Soviet tractor must cover an average of 432 acres while its American counterpart is tilling 66 acres...
...The poor harvest of 1963 was caused by unfavorable climatic conditions, but it strengthened the hand of Nikita Khrushchev and others who for some years have argued in favor of massively increased allocations of resources to agriculture...
...By 1970 the goal is to push grain yields to about 23 bushels per acre...
...This shortage of machinery prolongs the harvest and causes losses from shattering and bad weather...
...The technological revolution which made possible this great rise in productivity came in three waves: machinery, chemistry and breeding...
...and only one-third of it is delivered in bags...
...In chemistry, Soviet agriculture lags behind even more than in mechanization...
...Agriculture is featured in the second spot...
...and since 1958 the food supply has trailed the population increase...
...Since the '20s agricultural output has barely kept up with population growth...
...Soviet farmers complain that the fertilizer often arrives in a form unsuitable for use without additional processing...
...Soviet specialists estimate that each year about 20 per cent of the country's production of field crops is lost to pests and diseases, and the value of these losses are put at about six billion rubles annually...
...Complaints were voiced at the Central Committee meeting in December that new capacity was not being commissioned on schedule...
...Moisture has turned it to lumps and blocks...
...People and animals still do many tasks on Soviet farms that would be done by machine in this country...
...The latter figure would be approximately double the American production of plant nutrients in 1963...
...Total grain output would thus rise from 148 million tons in 1962 to about 225 million tons in 1970, if the target yields are obtained...
...Shortages of spare parts and inadequacies of repair work keep thousands of machines idle when they are most needed...
...Only two-fifths as much fertilizer is available in the Soviet Union as in the United States, and for a cultivated area that is nearly twice as large...
...Similarly, it took the thunder of a disastrous crop failure in 1963 to force the Soviet political leadership to confront and combat the sources of agricultural crisis in their country...
...Fertilizer in powder form is highly absorbent, and if handled carelessly it quickly draws moisture from the atmosphere and solidifies...
...Soviet authorities have strongly emphasized that fertilizer must be sent to where it will do the most good, i.e., to the more humid areas...
...Every American knows that things down on the farm are not what they used to be, but few are aware of the extent to which a technological revolution has transformed agriculture in this country...
...the result was the famous virgin land campaign to plow the arid steppe...
...But no idle acres exist today to be thrust into cultivation...
...Crop production per cultivated acre has nearly doubled, and the output of livestock products per head of breeding stock has increased by more than half...
...Soviet farmers complain of the poor quality and improper assortment of machinery delivered to them...
...Can the fertilizer goals be achieved...
...Finally, an acute shortage of spreaders and applicators limits the use of both organic and mineral fertilizer on Soviet farms...
...Mechanization is also to be stressed...
...But rising population and stagnant agriculture have forced Soviet policy-makers to reappraise their priorities...
...Further complaints were aimed at the factories manufacturing machinery for the chemical industry...
...Thus does an old Russian aphorism express the peasant's propensity to remember God only when misfortune strikes...
...Hybrid seeds and disease-resistant varieties transformed field husbandry...
...Soviet policy has finally been forced into measures designed to increase yields on the land already farmed...
...Others bewailed the fact that many new plants were not operating at their designed capacity...
...To argue that the fertilizer plan cannot be met is to ignore the truth that one outstanding characteristic of the Soviet economy is its ability to concentrate material, manpower and management on a few high priority objectives...
...Grain is cleaned, dried and handled without the aid of mechanical help...
...The second problem of developing the fertilizer industry will be bottlenecks associated with the hasty construction and commissioning of large quantities of new productive capacity...
...He said that fertilizer output would increase from 20 million tons in 1963 to 35 million tons in 1965...
...These resources, together with those necessary for mechanization and other agricultural investment, will constitute a very large total...
...The grain producing areas of the Soviet Union are climatically much colder and drier than most of the corn and wheat belts in this country...
...For the past two years there has been a gradual increase in the resources allocated to agriculture in the Soviet Union...
Vol. 47 • January 1964 • No. 2
