Agriculture under Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev, On the Further Development of Soviet Agriculture. July 4, 1978

Brezhnev’s report offered the authoritative balance sheet on the countryside after more than a decade of heavy investment and repeated “agrarian” campaigns. This excerpt shows the mixture of self-congratulation and alarm that defined the era: substantial growth in output, alongside persistent bottlenecks in machinery quality, transport, feed production, incentives, and planning, culminating in Brezhnev’s blunt admission that “the return from agriculture is still insufficient when compared with investment.”

Original Source: Pravda, 4 July 1978, pp. 1-3; and Izvestiia, 4 July 1978, pp. 1-4.

I. The Party's Agrarian Policy in Action: Basic Results. - Comrades! Our Party's present agrarian policy, as is known, has its origins in the March (1965) plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee.' ...

Everything possible has been done to intensify agricultural production. In the first place, we have changed our approach to the question of capital investments in agriculture. We treat this matter as the cornerstone of the further development of agricultural production and have made it a rule systematically to increase investment volume as much as possible. The Party decided on a redistribution of funds in the national economy, ensuring a sharp increase in capital investments in agricultural production and a substantial rise in their percentage of the total volume of capital investments. Whereas in the Seventh Five-Year Plan - i.e., before the March plenary session- this figure was 20%, in the Eighth Five-Year Plan it was 23%, in the Ninth 26%, and the planned figure for the 10th Five-Year Plan is more than 27%.

Fixed production assets in the communal sector of agriculture have reached a figure of 183 billion rubles, 180% above the 1965 level. The collective farms' and state farms' machine and tractor fleet has been almost completely renewed, it has improved qualitatively, and the percentage of up-to-date machines with high power ratios, large carrying capacity and high productivity has increased. The power capacities of agricultural enterprises have increased during these years from 232 million to 525 million horsepower, or by more than 100%, and power available per worker on collective farms and state farms has risen by 150%. The process of the electrification of agriculture is continuing actively.

The Party has attached great importance to chemicalization and land reclamation ... Last year 77 million tons of mineral fertilizer was delivered to the countryside, as against 27 million tons in 1965. There will be continued growth in fertilizer production to completely satisfy the requirements of agriculture. The area of irrigated and drained land in the country has nearly doubled; now our collective farms and state farms have over 27 million hectares of such land. In the 10th Five-Year Plan, about 40 billion rubles will be invested in land reclamation.

The development of the material and technical base is closely linked with the training of cadres, especially cadres of specialists and machine operators. A good deal of work has been done in this respect during the period under review. At present, the situation is as follows: The affairs of collective farms and state farms are managed by educated cadres of specialists, and equipment is handled by a large army of machine operators. As many as 93. 5% of the collective farm chairmen and 98. 3% of the state farm directors are specialists with a higher or secondary education. More than 1. 6 million specialists are working in agriculture today, and the number of machine operators has increased to 4. 225 million. Today every fifth worker in agriculture is a machine operator. Technical progress has led to the appearance in the countryside of large numbers of educated, skilled personnel in other categories as well ...

In today's conditions, the development of the productive forces of agriculture is linked in an especially close way with the resolution of the social questions of rural life. For many years, due to a number of reasons, we were unable to properly adjust the pay system in the countryside. At the present stage, a more suitable solution to this important question has been found. I have in mind above all the changeover to guaranteed pay for collective farmers. The Party's measures aimed at reducing the gap between the earnings of rural toilers and those of industrial workers are of fundamental importance. Over the past 12 years, collective farmers' pay has increased by 100% and that of state farm workers by 90%...

Final production results are the main criteria of all economic activity. What are they in agriculture?

I shall begin, as usual, with gross output. Its average annual volume in the last seven years (1971-1977) was 116 billion rubles, as against 81. 4 billion rubles in the years preceding the March plenary session. Harvest yields and the production of all farming products increased. This can be seen from the table below.

Gross Output and Harvest Yield of Farming Products (annual average for all categories of farms)

Positive processes occurred in the development of animal husbandry as well. The average annual gross output of this branch increased by 45% over these years. The number of livestock and their productivity grew. Meat production increased from an average of 9. 2 million tons in 1959-1965 to 14 million tons in 1971-1977, mill, production from 63.9 million to 88. 8 million tons, and egg production to 53. 5 billion, a 90% increase...

All this gladdens us, but it does not make us complacent. We realize very well that not everything in this sector is what it should be. The Central Committee's Politbiuro and the government take this into consideration and constantly keep questions of the fuller satisfaction of Soviet people's growing requirements in the center of their attention.

II. Raise the Level of Agricultural Production in Every Way. - ... We must reach an average annual gross grain harvest of 238 to 243 million tons in 1981-1985, and by 1990 we must bring this figure up to one ton per person on a countrywide average. Meat production should be brought up to 19. 5 million tons by the end of the next five-year plan. Milk and egg production must be increased greatly. This will make it possible to raise the per capita consumption of the most valuable food products and, by the end of the 11th Five-Year Plan, to draw much closer to scientifically substantiated norms ...

In the next five-year plan, we shalt set ourselves the task of completing the comprehensive mechanization of the cultivation of all the most important agricultural crops and of raising the mechanization of animal husbandry to a much higher level. For this purpose, we should continue to increase in every way deliveries to agriculture of tractors, trucks, combines and all other farm machinery. The production of tractors and trucks in our country is growing, and agriculture should receive a substantial portion of this increase.

At the same time, we shall have to resolve questions of the quality of farm machinery in a more radical way. As you know, the shortcomings in this area were criticized at the October 1976 plenary session of the Central Committee. But the situation is not being corrected very fast. Many obsolete designs of tractors and many types of equipment for farming and animal husbandry, designs that do not meet today's demands in terms of productivity, economy and reliability, are still in production. There is a serious lag in the production of the necessary set of machines for use with tractors and in the introduction of new production technologies. Therefore, the plans for the remaining years of this five-year plan and for 1981-1985 must stipulate a number of important measures to raise the technical level of the farm machinery industry ...

The problem of shipping agricultural freight remains very acute. The volume of this freight is growing steadily, but the truck fleet in the countryside is increasing at a slow pace. Moreover, as a rule the countryside receives trucks that are not adapted for hauling agricultural freight. It is time that the rural transport problem, no matter how difficult, be solved in a fundamental way. In particular, we must organize the production of heavy-duty and specialized trucks for agricultural use.

There are a good many other questions related to the further mechanization of agriculture. It is impossible for me to report to the plenary session on all of them in detail. But it is perfectly clear that the conversion of agriculture to an industrial footing is one of our fundamental tasks. We must take into account the fact that the figures for assets available per worker and power available per worker in agriculture still lag substantially behind industry ...

We must increase still more our exactingness in the matter of improving the utilization of all equipment that is sent to agriculture. We must not tolerate situations in which many collective farms and state farms do not observe rules for the operation and storage of machinery. Large numbers of machines stand idle because of poor-quality repairs and technical servicing. Much equipment wears out prematurely and is written off. There is no proper procedure governing the consumption of fuel and lubricants or the keeping of records on these materials. There are not enough machine operators, and the shift index of tractor operation is low. All this increases the unit cost of output and does great damage to the farms and to the state as a whole

Among the measures for the intensification of agricultural production, the further development of the production of mineral fertilizers and herbicides and pesticides deserves very serious attention ...

In view of the projected production volumes for farming and animal-husbandry products, deliveries of mineral fertilizer to agriculture in the next five-year plan will be increased to between 135 and 140 million tons, and deliveries of feed additives to 7 million tons. But quantity is not the only thing. Paramount importance must be assigned to improving the quality of output. Phosphate, concentrated and compound fertilizers should account for the major portion of the increase in fertilizer-producing capacity and growth in the production of mineral fertilizers. The question of lime production, especially for the needs of the Non-Black-Earth Zone, also requires a more basic solution.

Special mention should be made of herbicides and preparations for combating pests that harm agricultural crops. Agriculture's requirements for these items are still not being satisfied. Production volumes are extremely low; the assortment of herbicides that are being produced for the treatment of plantings of such agricultural crops as rice, sugar beets, potatoes, cotton and vegetables is limited, and none at all are produced for soybeans or sunflowers. For this reason, agriculture does not harvest as much of many products as it should. It is necessary to rectify this situation, to work out a state program for herbicides, to provide for the development of scientific research in this area and the creation of production capacities, and to expand the production and application of microbiological means of plant protection ...

Despite an appreciable increase in the production of meat, milk and other products and the improved organization of work in this branch, the present level of the development of animal husbandry does not meet rapidly growing requirements. Increasing the production of meat is a top-priority task ...

Of all the reserves for increasing beef production, raising the weight of slaughtered cattle and shortening fattening periods should be singled out for special attention. Recently the task was set of raising the weight standard to between 350 and 370 kilograms. Many provinces and republics have coped with this task successfully. For the country as a whole, the average weight of cattle sold to the state by collective farms and state farms is now 355 kg., and in a number of provinces and republics it is 400 to 440 kg. Because of this, the country today is receiving more than 1 million tons of additional meat a year ...

However, large numbers of cattle come to the meat-packing combines without having undergone any real fattening- their weight is low, and they are thin. In some areas, many calves are slaughtered. It is necessary as quickly as possible to change over to intensive methods of cattle raising everywhere and to deliver animals for meat only after they have reached a fattened weight of 400 to 450 kg ...

If we are to fundamentally solve the problem of beef production, it is necessary to do more energetic work to create

an independent branch of specialized livestock raising for meat, using pastureland and creating a solid feed base on irrigated land. Many farms in Kazakhstan, the Urals, Siberia and the Volga area are following this path, and it is yielding good results. New irrigated land in the Central Asian republics, the southern part of the Russian Republic and its Non Black-Earth Zone and Belorussia has great possibilities. An extensive program for the development of livestock raising for meat has been worked out and is being implemented in the Ukraine. In the near future this branch must be developed in such a way that it will become a major source for providing the country with high-quality meat ...

Important work lies ahead in the area of further increasing milk production. Although a rather big step forward has been taken in this direction in recent years, the branch's qualitative indices remain low. Milk yields are growing slowly, there are cases of barrenness, and there have been virtually no decreases in unit outlays of labor and feed or, consequently, in the unit cost of output. Special attention must be paid to this aspect of the dairy sections' work. In the near future, it is planned to bring the average countrywide milk yield on collective farms and state farms up to a minimum of 3, 000 kilograms; in areas of developed dairy farming, where yields of 3, 000 to 3, 500 kg. are already being obtained, the task is to reach a target of 4, 000 to 5, 000 kg. of in ilk.

In considering measures for the development of communal animal husbandry, I want to emphasize again that we should also show concern for the personal farming operations of collective farmers, workers and office employees. This is an important source for the replenishment of food resources. The new USSR Constitution states: "The state and the collective farms provide assistance to citizens in auxiliary farming operations." The auxiliary farming operations of industrial enterprises, public catering enterprises and other organizations should also play a useful role in the improvement of supplies ...

Feed production is conducted in a primitive way on many collective farms and state farms. These farms are doing a poorer job than other branches in introducing up-to-date technologies and achieving scientific and technical progress. There are few good storage facilities for feed. According to data in the hands of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences, losses of nutrient substances in feeds in connection with primitive methods of feed preparation and unsatisfactory storage conditions for the storage of hay and silage on many farms average 20% to 30% and more. The protein problem has not been solved. The concentrate feed industry is poorly developed. All this indicates a need for major steps to organize the production of feeds and to create what will be in essence a modern feed-production industry. By improving the quality of feed and observing the established technology for its production, it will be possible to obtain substantial additional resources of animal-husbandry products.

On this basis, resolutions on the comprehensive development of feed production in the country to cover the period up to 1985 were worked out and adopted during the period of preparations for the Central Committee plenary session. These resolutions envisage measures for improving field crop feed production, natural hayfields and pastures, increasing the application of fertilizer to fodder crops, and substantial amounts of land- reclamation work. Measures have been outlined for the mechanization of all processes in feed production, the introduction of progressive technologies for the procurement of fodder and its preparation for feeding, and the conversion of this branch to an industrial footing.

The Central Committee's Politbiuro attaches great importance to measures for feed production. The need for the creation of modern feed production as a specialized branch of the national economy is becoming perfectly obvious. This matter has great nationwide significance. Accordingly, a proper approach to the branch should be ensured, and the efficient planning of feed production and the supplying of materials and equipment to meet plan assignments should be introduced.

We have always devoted exceptional attention to grain production. As you know, at the 25th Party Congress grain production was recognized as a shock sector of work. For the first two years of the five-year plan, the average annual grain harvest was 209.6 million tons, as against the assignment figure of 210 million tons. However, there is still not enough grain, especially feed grain. Feed grain requirements are growing faster than production. The wide fluctuations in gross grain harvests from year to year have an adverse effect on animal husbandry.

The projected measures for the development of mechanization, chemicalization and land reclamation that I have reported above make it possible to conduct grain farming in a more stable way and to increase the yields of grain crops year by year. This is the main road. The task we are posing is to bring grain yields in the next five-year plan up to a countrywide average of 20 centners per hectare; in such regions as the North Caucasus, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Belorussia, the Baltic republics and some others, it will be realistic to obtain 35 to 40 or more centners of grain per hectare.

We should also make fuller use of such a reserve as the expansion of areas sown to grain in certain regions. This applies especially to the Non-Black-Earth Zone, which has possibilities for increasing the amount of land sown to grain at the expense of less productive annual grasses and other crops.

Such products as potatoes and vegetables should be given greater attention. I have in mind not only the need to increase their production. That is growing, though not as fast as one would wish. Speaking of vegetables, the most important things here, in our view, are the earliest possible completion of the conversion of vegetable growing to irrigation, a reduction in harvest losses, the ensuring of high output quality, and the strengthening of the material and technical base for vegetable processing and storage. With a view to improving the supply of vegetables in wintertime, it is also very important to increase the cultivation of vegetables through the construction of greenhouses and hotbeds, making use of the experience of Moscow, Leningrad and other cities.

The practice of many of our provinces, territories and republics and the socialist countries' experience shows that the task of providing potatoes and vegetables can be accomplished most successfully on the basis of new organizational forms - economically accountable associations that include specialized farms for the production of these products and enterprises for their storage and processing. On this basis, we must instruct the USSR Council of Ministers to submit proposals on the creation of such an organization in the near future ...

III. Questions of the Economics of Collective Farms and State Farms. - Comrades! Ensuring stable and well-adjusted economic relations in agriculture and among the branches of the agro-industrial complex plays an extremely important role in solving the problems of increasing the production of agricultural products...

First of all, I want to talk about planning- a highly important lever in the management of agricultural production. Recently, along with firm plans, so-called overall volumes of purchases and various additional assignments have been established. In essence, a proliferation of plans has appeared. In some places the practice of making frequent and unwarranted changes in plans has been revived. This reduces the mobilizing role of the plan, has a negative effect on the organization of production and economic activity, and does little to stimulate the struggle for the further growth of production. The situation must be rectified. In the next five-year plan, republics, territories, provinces, districts, collective farms and state farms should establish a uniform single plan for purchases of agricultural products for the five years, with a breakdown by year.

At the same time, incentives must be improved for farms that attain high indices in production growth and in the sale of output to the state. There are various proposals on this score. Apparently it will be necessary to give detailed study to questions of the further improvement of the incentive system for sales of agricultural products with the broad participation of practical workers and the enlistment of scientific institutions and to draft - within a year's time, say - specific proposals that the USSR Council of Ministers can examine and submit to the CPSU Central Committee. We must work out principles of planning and incentives that will create more favorable conditions for expanded reproduction at the present stage, improve the validity of plans, and ensure the elimination of the subjective approach to the drafting of plans that is still prevalent in local areas.

We should also give some thought to strengthening the connection between material incentives for state farm workers and collective farmers, on the one hand, and the results of their labor, on the other, and to the efficient utilization of production assets and material resources. It is also important to improve the procedure for awarding bonuses to farm managers and specialists ...

In the past several years a great deal of work has been done to improve purchase prices. However, so far we have not been able to adjust everything as well as one would like. The prices of some types of products still do not compensate the collective farms and state farms for their outlays. What does this lead to? The more products of this kind that the farms produce, the greater their losses are. Willy-nilly, the growth rate of production slows down, and for this reason people in some places are going so far as to try to lower it. This situation cannot be allowed to continue. Of course, in the first place it is necessary to consistently and steadily raise labor productivity and lower the unit cost of output. But at the same time one must agree to a certain rise in the prices of some products.

In this connection, a resolution has been adopted that will, as of Jan. 1, 1979, without changing retail prices, raise the purchase prices of milk, wool, astrakhan, mutton, potatoes and certain kinds of vegetables, the aim being to ensure the profitable production of these products on collective farms and state farms. Additional payments to farms because of the price rises will total approximately 3. 2 billion rubles a year. The USSR Council of Ministers should continue work on improving purchase prices.

With a view to further strengthening the economies of collective farms and state farms and creating conditions for managing production on the basis of economic accountability, it has been decided to carry out a number of other measures as well. It has been deemed advisable to exempt from the payment of income taxes collective farms with a profitability of lower than 25%, as against the 15% cutoff figure now in effect. The amount of compensation for state farms' losses from natural disasters is to be raised, using 1 billion rubles from the state budget for this purpose.

You know that in 1972 and 1975 collective farms and state farms in many parts of the country, as a result of unprecedented droughts, found themselves in extremely difficult conditions for farming; this could not help but have an effect on their economic situation, and it led to extensive financial indebtedness. Therefore, with a view to improving the economic position of these farms, it has been deemed necessary to write off the debts of collective farms and state farms for State Bank loans in the sum of 7.3 billion rubles and to defer the repayment of credits totaling 4 billion rubles for 12 years.

There is still the question of pensions for collective farmers. The CPSU Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers have adopted a resolution on moving up the time periods for the implementation of the measures outlined by the 25th Party Congress for improving pensions for collective farmers. Provision has been made for raising the minimum pension for collective farmers by 40% as of Jan. 1, 1980. In the next five-year plan, it will evidently be necessary to bring it up to the level of workers and office employees.

The measures that we plan to carry out to strengthen the economies of the collective farms and state farms involve additional state spending, of course. But they open up new possibilities for more rapid growth in collective farm and state farm production, and one can say with confidence that they will be more than recouped by increases in the state's resources of grain, meat, milk and other agricultural products.

But here I would like to say once again that the return from agriculture is still insufficient when compared with investment. All of us, beginning with the Central Committee and its departments, the Agriculture Department above all, as well as the USSR Council of Ministers, the State Planning Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture and other agricultural departments and Party and Soviet officials at all levels, should be thoroughly aware of this. The task of improving the utilization of material and financial resources on state farms and collective farms and increasing the efficiency of agricultural production in today's conditions should be placed in the forefront. To this end, it is necessary in all economic sectors, from top to bottom, to launch an even more persistent struggle for economy and thrift, for lower unit cost of output and against instances of mismanagement and wastefulness. Only in this way can the highly productive utilization of the economic potential that has been created in the countryside be achieved.

IV. Greater Activeness and Businesslike Efficiency in the Development of Inter-farm Cooperation - ... As you know, in May 1976 the CPSU Central Committee adopted the resolution "On the Further Development of the Specialization and Concentration of Agricultural Production on the Basis of Inter-farm Cooperation and Agro-Industrial Integration., 2

The Central Committee resolution has received the full support of the Party and the people and is regarded as a highly important political and programmatic document. It embodies and further develops in concrete conditions the ideas of Lenin's great cooperative plan.

Since the resolution appeared, a great deal of fruitful work has gotten under way in local areas. Concrete plans for the specialization and concentration of agricultural production have been set and are being implemented in practice. At present, more than 8, 000 inter-farm and agro-industrial enterprises and associations are operating in the country. These enterprises, a new type for the countryside, are already producing large amounts of various products.

Through joint efforts, collective farms and state farms are creating modern enterprises for the production of meat and milk, the raising of pedigreed animals and the production of feed. As a rule, labor productivity and the growth rates of output on inter-farm animal-husbandry associations are much higher than on the collective farms and state farms.

In farming, joint enterprises for seed growing and the production of vegetables, fruit, grapes and other crops are being created on the basis of cooperation. A high level of intensification in agriculture is inconceivable without inter-farm cooperation in the use of equipment and in chemicalization and land reclamation. Here too appropriate associations are beginning to be set up. Moldavia and other parts of the country have valuable experience, tested by practice, in this respect.

Inter-farm cooperation is an important and complicated objective process. It cannot be held back, nor can it be hurried. The work should be conducted in a planned fashion, after careful consideration and in conjunction with other measures for the intensification of agricultural production. This is a voluntary matter, of course, and we shalt adhere strictly to this principle. But voluntary and laissez-faire are antipodes, not brothers.

Some uncomplimentary words have to be addressed to individual Union agencies - I have in mind primarily the USSR Ministry of Agriculture and the USSR State Planning Committee. They have not yet become the centers that coordinate and direct all work on the specialization and concentration of agricultural production in the country. Frequently narrowly departmental positions are taken by individual officials of ministries and departments, particularly the food industry and the meat and dairy industry. Instead of actively working hand in hand with agricultural agencies to develop production cooperation, they hold back this progressive process and sometimes, to put it mildly, fail to recommend that their farms enter into inter-farm cooperation, or seek to create isolated associations ...

V. Increase Attention to Construction in the Countryside - ... Since the March (1965) plenary session of the CPSU Central Committee, a good deal has been done to expand and raise the level of rural construction as a new branch of the national economy. Let me remind you that specialized state construction organizations, united in the USSR Ministry of Rural

Construction, have been set up. The capacities of the existing systems of inter- collective farm construction organizations are being developed.

Over the past 10 years, almost 16 billion rubles in state and collective farm funds has been invested in the creation of a production base for rural construction. At present, about 3 million construction workers are working on the construction of rural facilities. This is a large new detachment of the working class in the countryside. The Ministry of Rural Construction and the inter- collective farm construction organizations have already reached a volume of construction- and installation work totaling more than 10 billion rubles a year.

Rural construction today is also a very important element in the solution of social problems. The Party is firmly following a course aimed at the fundamental improvement of housing, cultural and living conditions in the countryside. As I said quite recently, during the past 13 years a total of 450 million cubic meters of housing space has been built in rural localities. Let me remind you that this figure is the same as the housing stock of all our country's cities in the prewar year of 1940. Housing construction in the countryside, as well as in the cities, is being converted to an industrial footing. The buildup of rural settlements is beginning to be carried out in an integrated fashion, according to general plans. Along with residential buildings, modern public facilities are going up. Now one frequently sees in a village a modern shopping center, a well-equipped House of Services, a dining room and a cozy cafe.

In the recent past the construction of kindergartens and day nurseries in the countryside was a great rarity, and those that did exist were usually sited in primitive buildings. Since 1965 preschool institutions for almost 2 million children, general-education schools for 11 million pupils, clubs and Palaces of Culture with a total capacity of 8 million people and many public health, municipal- service and sports facilities have been built according to standard designs.

All the same, rural construction still remains a bottleneck, I would say. Despite the steps that have been taken, the production base of construction in rural localities is still weak. Collective farms and state farms perform more than one-third of all construction work by the do-it-yourself method. This greatly reduces the quality of construction and leads to the stretching out of construction schedules and higher costs. As a result of the scattering of capital investments over a large number of construction projects, plans for the commissioning of capacities in agriculture are not fulfilled, which leads to an increase in unfinished construction ...

It is necessary to ensure a correct approach to rural construction, with consideration for the special features of the life and interests of the rural population. Obviously, rural construction should be oriented toward providing families, as a rule, with individual well-appointed houses with auxiliary plots and outbuildings for domestic livestock and poultry and personal means of transportation.

It is very important to ensure the development of individual and cooperative housing construction using the funds of the rural population. on this score, a resolution has been adopted that envisages measures for stimulating individual housing construction by offering long-term credits on favorable terms ...

I would also like to discuss the important question of road construction. A further upswing in agricultural production and a rise in the living standard of the rural population are directly connected with the development of the network of motor roads, the main transport arteries of the countryside its lifelines, one might say. But there are still few good roads. Agriculture's losses because of poor roads are too high.

The USSR State Planning Committee and the Union-republic Councils of Ministers should see to it that road construction finds an appropriate place in plans for economic and social development and is backed up with the necessary financial and material resources ...

Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XXX, No. 27 (1978).