THE AFFORESTATION PROGRAM OF THE USSR

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00809A000600330388-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 26, 2011
• Sequence Number: 388
• Publication Date: August 1, 1950
• Content Type: REPORT

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CLASSIFICATION CONFIDENTIA]CCNFIDE!TIAL
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY REPORT
INFORMATION FROM
FOREIGN DOCUMENTS OR RADIO BROADCASTS CD NO.
SUBJECT
HOW
PUBLISHED
WHERE
PUBLISHED
DATE
PUBLISHED
LANGUAGE
Economic - Forestry
Monthly periodical
Berlin
Dec 1949
DATE OF
INFORMATION 1949
DATE DIST. / AuG 1950
NO. OF PAGES 4
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
OF THE UNITED STATUS -- -. -... .--- -- ON
S. O., II AND 3E, Af AMENDED. ITS TNANIIISIION 12ORT" E RIVI ATI0N A NIfITEDDIT TLAW. 10MNPRODUCTIOARV N 01 THIS UNAUTHO 10 '1 FOND II ONI ITI D, If PRO-
F
Statistische Praxis, Monatszeitschrift fur Theoretische and Angewandte
Forschungs- Verwaltungs- and Betriebsstatik, Vol IV, No 12, 19 9?
The same information was also found in Etudes et Conjecture, Economie
Mondiale, Vol V, No'l, P 150, Paris, and in Lesnoye Khozyaystvo Vol I,
No 1, 1948, Moscow_7
THE AFFORESTATION PROGRAM OF THE USSR
The plan for shelter belt;planting initiated by the Soviet Union on
20 October 1948 includes the planting of trees for field protection, introduc-
tion of grass-crop rotation, and construction of ponds and water reservoirs to
assure large and uniform harvests in the steppe and forest steppe zones of the
European USSR by minimizing the effect of droughts, 20 of which have occurred
in the Volga region during the last 65 years.
The plan is unique in its magnitude and may acquire revolutionary signif-
icance, if the experience gained from it can be applied to other drought-
stricken agricultural regions of the world, or insofar as irrigation potenti-
alities can be created there, to hitherto agriculturally unprodiyctive areas.
Similar shelter belt planting attempts were made in North America after World
War I when the fertile wheat-growing regions threatened to become barren
steppes. The present measures of the Soviet government are based on the ex-
perience which V. V. Dokuchayev has gained since 1892 on an experimental sta-
tion in the rocky steppe zone between the Volga and Don rivqgs. ,y
A. Shelter Belts
In the course of the next 15 years, an area of about 6.1 million hectares
(equivalent to about 4 percent of the total Soviet cultivated area) is to be
planted with shelter belts. There are to be eight wehstateeshelt rabelts, to
cum-
be planted by the government, which will cover 117,900
ulative length of 5,320 kilometers; they will run in a generally north-south
s
direction and are to intercept the east winds blowing from the'?andy expanses
of the Kara-Kum Desert. They will increase moisture content, i the air 200fto
30 percent, reduce surface evaporation, and provent further blows g away
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CONFIDENTIAL
the'topsoil. The most easterly belt, running from the Urals to the Caspian
Sea, will be the widest. It will be composed of six individual belts, 60 me-
ters wide and 300 meters apart. The most westerly belts are to be composed of
only two individual belts.
Planting
Area
Length
Belts
Width of Distance
Individual Between
Belts Belts
-
on
-
it
)
meters
(1,000 ha)
(
)
s
un
1.
Saratov - Astrakhan (on the
banks of the Volga River)
18.0
900
2
100
2.
Penza - Yekaterinovka -
6
3
60
300
Kamensk
11.3
00
3.
Kamyshin - Stalingrad
3.3
170
3
60
300
4.
Chapayevsk - Vladimirovka
15.3
580
4
60
300
6.
Vishnevaya Mountain -
Caspian Sea (on the banks
of the Ural River)
41.6
.11080
6
60
200 fic]
7.
Voronezh - Rostov (on the
2
60
banks of the Don River)
11.0
920
8.
Belgorod - Don (on the banks
of the Severny;? Donets River)
3.0
500
2
30
-
Total
117.9
5,320
-
-
-
The planned belts will be complemented by already existing forests, especially
west and north of the upper reaches of the Ural River, in the Kuban area, and in
the northern Ukraine. While it is believed that Rumania will benefit from these
shelter belts, the Academy of Sciences in Bucharest has already been at work since
the beginning of 1949 planning a similar system of shelter belts for the frequently
drought-stricken steppes of Rumania.
To carry out the necessary planning work, the Ministry of Foreataay is estab-
lishing 300 forest conservation stations, 50 steppe forest managements, 200 forest
managements, and 60 large state tree nurseries. Fifty-four forest conservation
stations, 41 steppe forest managements, and 67 state tree nurseries are already in
operation. An additional 270 forest conservation stations arc being established
by the Ministry of Agriculture. An area of 3,532 hectares had been sown by the
nurseries as of 10 May 1949.,
The sovkhozes and kolkhozes are to plant a system of field shelter belts cov-
ering an area of 6,031,000 hectares between the large state shelter belts. This
figure includes the areas to be planted for the purpose of stabilizing shifting
sands and the slopes of ravines. The field shelter belts are to be only 30 meters
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CONFIDENTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
Field Shelter Belts, 1949 - 1965
1,000 Ha
purpose
Field protection
4,172.5
0
368
Stabilization of ravine slopes
.
0
322
Stabilization of shifting sands
.
5
960
Afforestation in state forests
.
0
190
s
lkh
k
.
oze
o
Afforestation on
6
031.0
Total forest planting
,
Types of Planting (Excluding State Shelter Belts)
(1,000 ha)
1949
1950
1951-1955
1956-1965 Tota
l
Planting Agency and Purpose
0
5
8
0
160
0
1
1,988.0 3,59
5
Kolkhozes (field protection)
.
.
,360.0
58
2.5
Sovkhozes (field protection)
5
0
0
0
Ministry of Forestry
Stabilization of ravine slopes
16.0
42.0
328.0
6
386
- 32
.0
2.0
Stabilization of shifting sands
22.4
43.1
.5
25
2
6
- 96
0
5
Afforestation in state forests
148.1
159.2
53.
0
0
6
0..
on kolkhozes
t
ti
-
-
.
19
on
a
Affores
Total
275.0
425.3
2,941.7
2,389.0 6,03
1.0
B. planting
About 38 different species of trees and shrubs will be used in planting the
she belts. This number is adequate to permit planting a species adapted to
every possible type of soil. Long-lived species include oak, ash, walnut, birch,
pine, Siberian larch, and others suitable for dry areas, and eucalyptus for the
banks of rivers and other bodies of water. In front of the long-lived trees, elm,
maple, linden, or fruit trees are to be planted, and in front of these, such
shrubs as v'.ilow, hawthorn, hazelnut, etc., and berry bushes on the kolkhozes.
Two- to 3-year-old nursery seedlings will be planted. In the course of 6 years,
33,712,000,000 plants are to be grown. The new forests will provide a 3-percent
increase in the ratio of forested to noLforested area in the USSR, and will ef-
fect an 80-percent increase in the absolute forest area, iifa 20 present
of 8 million hectares is assumed. In the course of 15 years,
forest will be planted in the European USSR as now exists in Denmark, and 25
times as much as now stands in the Netherlands.
The Ministry of Forestry, which must provide 56 percent of the seedling re-
quirements, will establish 60 new nurseries in addition to those already exist-
ing. The Ministry of Agriculture will operate 60 more nurseries. The sovkhozes
--
have been charged with establishing 1-10 nurseries -- in 30 1950y
to provide stock for their plantings, and one nursery
five to ten kolkhozes in 1949.
CUNFIDE.NTIAL
CONFIDENTIAL
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Supplier
1949
1950
1951-1955 Requ
irements
State Nurseries
Of Ministry of Forestry
1,900
2,550
14,477
56.2
8
8
Of Ministry of Agriculture
634
1,015
8,062
2
.
8
Kolkhoz nurseries
246
377
2,686
9.
2
Sovkhoz nurseries
86
219
1,460
5.
Total
2,866
4,161
26,685
100.0
C. Working Personnel
The 570 forest conservation stations will perform the technical work in
their respective districts. They will have the most modern soil-cultivating
and tree-planting machines at their disposal. Each soil-cultivating machine
will replace 300 workers. Nevertheless, a large number of specialists will
have to be trained.
By 1948, 198,900 hectares of shelter belts had been planted on the fields
of sovkhozes and kolkhozes. This planting met the plan 103.6 percent. The
kolkhozes planted 48,800 hectares of the total, the sovkhozes 3,300 hectares,
and the state forest managements 146,800 hectares.
D. Irrigation
From 1949 to 1955, a planned program of irrigation is to be carried out
through the construction of ponds, water reservoirs, and dams on the small
streams. A total of 44,228 ponds and reservoirs are to be built in the Ukrain-
ian SSR: 41,300 by kolkhozes and 2,938 by sovkhozes. Even before the war,
almost every other kolkhoz had a natural reservoir; 14,200 ponds covered an
area of 63,000 hectares. Of those destroyed during the war, about 500 can be
restored. In 1948, 1,952 new ponds were constructed.
This irrigation system is intended to increase the productivity of the
soil and increase harvests of wheat, sugar beet, sunflower, caoutchouc, etc.,
and to make possible the establishment of additional tea and cotton planta-
tions in the desert areas of Turkestan and the Transcaucasus. The electric
power and fish industries will also benefit from this irrigation system.
E. Production Increases
In connection with the afforestation program, the grass-crop rotation
system devised by V. R. Williams is to be introduced on 10,866 kolkhozes in
1949 and on 6,265 kolkhozes in 1950. It has been recommended that clover,
spartina, and alfalfa be grown on fields for 2 years to increase feed produc-
tion.
This recommendation is in line with the Soviet Two-Year Plan for increas-
ing livestock production. Under this plan, production of meat, lard, milk,
butter, eggs, and other food products, as well as leather, wool, etc., would
increase at least 50 percent by 1951. To what extent yields per hectare would
be increased by these measures will be shown by statistical results in future
years.
F. Plan Fulfillment
In 1949, 136 state forest conservation stations were established. Each
station has from 100 to 200 kolkhozea under its supervision.
-END -
v V ftl IULIV I lRI.
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