SOVIET AGRICULTURE: PROSPECTS 1956-1960

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80R01443R000300330021-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 5
• Document Creation Date: November 17, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 24, 1998
• Sequence Number: 21
• Publication Date: March 9, 1955
• Content Type: BRIEF

rNA .sRI ed or Release 2000/
80R01 443R000300330# 1:
9 March 1955
SOVIET AGRICULTURE: PROSPECTS 1956-1960
I. Malenkov's resignation statement, with its contrived ad-
mission of guilt for agricultural failures, has again high-
lighted agriculture,-as perhaps the Soviet Union's single
most urgent problem.
A. In face of a 10 percent increase in population since
1938, (over 3 million added each year, at present)
Soviet agricultural output in 1953 was only three
percent above the prewar level. Consequently, the per
capita daily intake of food in 1953-54 was only 2,700
calories compared with 2,900 in 1938-39 -- a decline
of 6 percent.
B. Compared with the US, this diet -- while .adequate --
is very starch-heavy, with little meat, milk, fats
and oils.
C. This slow agricultural growth thus seriously threatens
to retard total economic growth, by lowering urban
labor productivity and by creating political instability.
II. As in recent past, success or failure of the USSR's present
agricultural plans may have important bearing on stability
of Soviet leadership in the next several years.
A. Khrushchev is closely identified with two elements of
these plans --
1. "New Lands" program: expanding wheat acreage onto
more than 70 million acres marginal land in Siberia
and Kazakhstan by 1956. (This area roughly equal
to Arizona.)
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B. Both these programs are major gambles because of weather
and soil conditions. Despite these risks, Khrushchev
cast a longing eye toward US corn-hog production
methods.
1. For wheat production, soil and climate in much of
the "new lands" area is less favorable them in. the
Soviet Ukraine. The Soviet Ukraine and US Dakotas
are roughly comparable.
a. We are all aware of uncertainty of crop yields
in the Dakotas, because of uncertain rainfall.
b. Precisely same uncertainties exist in the rich
black soil regions which. cover three-fourths
of Ukraine.
c. Average yields of wheat in the Dakotas and the
Ukraine are practically the same -- 9 to 12
bushels per acre.
d. In the more humid areas west of the Ukraine,
such as those in Rumania, the wheat yield is
appreciably higher, as is true in the more
humid regions of the US.
2. Ae3.i1the USSR has no hope of developing corn
yields comparable to US corn belt, where soil and
climatic conditions are exceptionally favorable.
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million acres to 70 million acres by 1960.
III. Major Soviet plans for 1955-60 ("new lands" and corn
expansion) envision a doubling of both grain and livestock
w
products output by 1960.
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A. To achieve a. doubling by 1960 in, meat products,
Khrushchev logically has placed primary emphasis on
pork production (Pigs mature faster than cattle).
Pork production is to go up 100 percent, beef pro-
duction 70 percent.
R. Both grain programs are highly expensive, requiring
large investments of machinery and manpower.
C. Climate conditions make both programs very risky
crop failures may be expected two. out of every five
years on "new lands", and favorable weather for corn
growing is not available in. most of the USSR.
D. Current CIA estimates -- which assume normal weather are that by 1960, Soviet grain and livestock output
at the very maximum -- will not measure more than
20 to 30 percent above 1954, whereas the Kremlin
has scheduled an increase of about 100 percent.
IV. Malenkov apparently felt that the best way of increasing
output was to raise crop yields per acre in traditional
agricultural areas through intensive use of existing
acreage and increased peasant incentives.
A. The Fifth Five-Year Plan called for an 88 percent
by
increase in fertilizer production by 1955, but/the
end of 1954, production was only 45 percent above
the 1950 level.
B.. On the incentive side, tax reductions, price adjustments,
and slight increases in the availability of consumer
goods have been reported.
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1. Question -- in simple terms -- is whether these
incentives will prove to be strong enough to get
a collective farmer out of bed at two o'clock in
the morning to tend a sick cow belonging to the
collective, as he probably would if the cow were
his own.
2. No indication up to now that the peasant has radi-
cally changed his negative attitude towards the
collective farm.
V. While present Soviet regime has not rejected this policy
-- increasing agricultural production in the traditional
areas -- it has added to it the grandiose expansion schemes
already mentioned.
A. These are intended to increase output much more quickly,
although probably at greater long-run cost, than the
intensification cum incentive measures initiated in.
the fall of 1953.
B.. The success or failure of the expansion schemes --
which-we will be watching closely -- may thus determine
how near the USSR will come to achieving its agri-
cultural goals in the next five years.
VI. While the USSR is engaged in these two costly grain ex-
pansion gambles -- a program reaffirming the historic
Soviet policy of economic self-sufficiency -- the USSR
/, ffle
can expect no help from the rest of the Soviet Bloc..
The rest of the Bloc is presently worse off than the USSR.
A. 1954 overall Bloc output of grain, the most important
crop, was 2 percent less than in 1953, despite small
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Soviet gains. J,
1. In USSR, grain output in '54 was up about 5 percent
over relatively poor '53*level, because the almost
spectacular combination of favorable weather factors
on "new lands" more than offset effects of drought
in Ukraine, the traditional breadbasket of USSR.
(Meat production in 1954, reflecting low grain
levels in recent years, was only 2 percent above
'53.)
2. In Satellites and China, however, the drop in grain
output in '54, due to poor weather and flood,
brings total for Bloc down below 1953 crop year.
Overall, Bloc agriculture production was slightly
poorer in 1954 than in 1953. However, except for
North Vietnam and some areas of China, where temporary
famine may occur this spring, food supply in the Bloc
this year (drawn from 154 harvests) will be adequate.
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