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Soviet Union [USSR] Grain
Grain crops have long been the foundation of agriculture in the
Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. In 1986 grain was grown on
55.3 percent of the total sown area of 210.3 million hectares. The
most widely cultivated grain crops continued to be wheat (48.7
million hectares, or 23.2 percent of the total sown area), followed
in order by barley (30.0 million hectares), oats (13.2 million
hectares), rye (8.7 million hectares), pulses (6.7 million
hectares), corn for grain (4.2 million hectares), millet (2.5
million hectares), buckwheat (1.6 million hectares), and rice
(600,000 hectares). The area sown with wheat declined steadily
throughout the 1970s and 1980s, reaching a thirty-year low in 1987.
And the total area occupied by grain fell during each year from
1981 through 1986, as more land was laid fallow or planted in
fodder crops.
Although the total area allotted to grain in 1986 (116.5
million hectares) was only slightly greater than that allotted in
1960 (115.8 million hectares), total output throughout the period
steadily rose, thanks to the use of more productive farming
methods, improved seed, and heavier application of fertilizers. For
example, average wheat yields rose from 1.34 tons per hectare
between 1966 and 1970 to 1.6 tons per hectare between 1976 and 1980
(a figure slightly skewed by the record harvest of 1978), 1.45 tons
per hectare from 1981 to 1985, and 1.89 tons per hectare in 1986.
At the same time, rye, barley, oats, and corn yields were also
gradually rising.
The Soviet Union has never had an oversupply of feed grains,
and before Brezhnev's era it was customary to conduct wholesale
slaughter of livestock during bad harvest years to conserve grain
for human consumption. Beginning in the early 1970s, however, the
standard policy was to import the grain needed to sustain large
livestock inventories. Thereafter, the Soviet Union appeared
destined to be a permanent net importer of grains. During the
Eleventh Five-Year Plan (1981-85), the country imported some 42
million tons of grain annually, almost twice as much as during the
Tenth Five-Year Plan (1976-80) and three times as much as during
the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75). The bulk of this grain was
provided by the West; in 1985, for example, 94 percent of Soviet
grain imports were from the noncommunist world, with the United
States supplying 14.1 million tons.
Data as of May 1989
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