The Virgin and Idle lands scheme built upon an inherently weak system and marked Russia’s backwardness in comparison to the industrialised nations. Importantly it was in the late 1700s that Britain had had it agricultural revolution, with enclosures and the development of new methods. This had been mainly due to the fact that Britain had little arable land and so needed to increase the productivity of what it did have. Khrushchev saw Russia’s advantage was that it had massive amounts of unused land with locked up fertility, therefore against the tradition in agriculture of intensifying the use of the land Khrushchev attempted to extensity it. He had hoped for some 30million hectares to be ploughed up, and his expectations were exceeded as between 1953 and 1960 total agricultural land increased from 188.6million hectares to 220million. Lazar Voline tells us that between 1953 and 1958 the total planted areas increased by 24percent, whilst the sown area in the east increased by a massive 90percent. Because of the amount of this new land being brought in to use and because of this locked up fertility there were huge increases in production, between 1953 and 1957 as high as 40-50percent. The harvest of 1956 exceeded all expectations, and in 1958 a record 134.7million tonnes of grain were produced. In addition there were also good successes in relation to cattle numbers as in the same period they increased by 27percent, the number of pigs increased by 46percent and sheep by 30percent. The system also helped to relieve other areas of the countryside from their need to always produce the same crop and allowed them to diversify in the goods they produced. Thus it appeared by 1958 that the scheme had proved a huge success, however the harvest of 1958 was not again to be repeated. This was because the system Khrushchev had designed had some fatal flaws that meant it was destined to failure.
It was obvious that the way in which Russia was using the countryside would not last. The virgin lands were ill managed and there fertility soon began to waver, Importantly the usual way to put the fertility back in to the land would be to use animals grazing on the fallow. However the animals were located in the West whereas the farmland was in the East. Whilst the idle lands were usually idle for a reason, maybe they needed to recover from previous extensive farming, or had previously been deemed simply unsuitable. There were also problems with the transport system; the farms were located huge distances from the market places in the West. It simply could not deal with the demand, and a lot of produce went to waste whilst in storage or in transit. The scheme caused massive human movement as some 300,000 people from the towns were transferred to the farms with the promise of incentives. However when they arrived they often found the conditions of the East hard, and the towns for them non existent. Many returned to the towns, and those that remained were not experienced farmers. As climatic conditions took a turn for the worse, the ill management of the system became apparent, crops had been planted in areas that were not suitable for them, and too little fallow had been used. In the Kazakh virgin lands a drought caused the topsoil to dry out and some 15million acres were ruined in summer dust storms that swept the top inches of soil to the Sayan Mountains.
Khrushchev had put too much strain on the countryside and demanded too much. The people had to conform, they had to hit targets, and so farm managers were forced to plant corn, peas or sugar beets, and not grasses and oats, regardless of whether the crops suited the conditions or not. With a lot of importance put on the use of corn this earned Khrushchev the nickname ‘Kukuruznik’, the maize freak. Again there was poor planning and of the 85million acres of maize planted at Khrushchev’s demand only 60million acres could be harvested. The early sowing of crops and the lack of fallow land brought massive weed infestation that choked off the grain, as there were no herbicides to deal with it. A report from Kazakhstan reported that because of this problem a good yield of grain was cut in half after it was cleaned. In Ryazan in 1959 it was reported that the amount of meat sold to the state had increased by three times to 150 thousand tonnes. The first Party secretary of Ryazan Alexi Larianov was than made a hero of Socialist labour, however it turned out that these figure had been a lie. The targets had been by sending breeding stock and milch cows were slaughtered, and the had fixed figures by buying cattle from peasants then giving them the stock back and buying them again. In the desperation to hit targets and increase productivity the Ryazan herds had been ruined, and a year later Alexi had shot himself. There was such competition and desperation between regions that it became apparent that some Kolkhozes were rustling cattle from others and hence meat production fell. Khrushchev’s early exuberance had not planned for the future he simply thought he could overcome the countryside with mass farming, and now he had to radically rethink his approach. In 1960 Khrushchev was forced to make a key shift in policy, rather than using extensive lands he had to concede defeat and find a solution to the grain problem by intensifying the use of existing lands, improving efficiency, and yields.
Huge amounts of capital investment went in to the countryside in an attempt to improve efficiency and yields. This included using new methods of irrigation, new tools and machinery were to be provided, emphasis was put on the use of fallow, and chemicals were provided. In 1963 as part of his intensification tactic Khrushchev initiated a programme of using mineral fertiliser, and in 1964 had some 22million tonnes delivered to agriculture. It was efforts like this that forced prices up, as the improvements in yields simply did not come in the way Khrushchev believed. The fertiliser would often be poor quality, there would be excessive filler in it, and it was inefficiently transported, stored and applied. This meant that due to the extra cost of this fertiliser and the extra cost it added to the final price of the grain no economic gains were made. Khrushchev also made a fundamental mistake with one of his solutions to reduce costs that meant Machine Tractor Stations would be merged with the Kolkhozes. This was because as they merged the Kolkhozes had to absorb the costs of housing repairing, maintaining and acquiring the machines. Whilst they also had to pay the wages of the MTS employees, this was compounded by implementation and administration problems. Between 1958 and 1961 the total numbers of machinery in agriculture in machinery actually decreased for the first time in peacetime Russia. Khrushchev said that in 1962 2.7million tractors were needed on the farms to allow them to function efficiently, however by the end of this year only 1,329,000 had been provided. In the US they had four times more tractors per hectare of arable land s than the USSR, three times more.
Problem in Agriculture were compounded by an inefficient procurement system, as Khrushchev abolished cheap compulsory procurements that had characterised the Stalin era. Khrushchev believed that if he used procurement as an economic incentive this would help stimulate greater growth. These meant that if you hit your yield target and then for every 1percent achieved on this you would get a bonus. However the reverse was also applicable and if you failed to hit the target, for every 1percent below there was a deduction. In theory this seemed a good idea, but in practice it was more problematic as the entire procurement price did was reduce the Kolkhozes debt, rather than generate profit. There were a number of procurement agencies acting without proper co-ordination, they often downgraded and cheated the Kolkhozes. The Kremlin became unhappy that the price mechanism and market now controlled the countryside. This meant the state struggled to control price in 1962-3 the average increase in procurement price had gone up by 35percent for livestock and poultry, 10percetn for butter and 5percetn for cream. When Khrushchev had promised lower prices and in order to pay for these extra costs taxes on vodka, tobacco and other commodities this fanned discontent. In 1963 the average price paid by the government over 1952 was 3.3 times greater for farm products, and 8.4 times greater for grain, and 4.3 for meat. There great delays in the procuring of grains and the lack of suitable facilities characterised the transportation of perishable items. A party official in Astrakhan complained, ‘sometimes it is easier to grow good tomatoes than to deliver them where people are waiting for them’. Therefore the only real impact that allowing market forces to determine price appeared to do was raise the cost to the state, whom in turn passed these costs on to the consumer.
