ศูนย์นวัตกรรมเทคโนโลยีหลังการเก็บเกี่ยว

Improved USSR grain production will not solve food supply problems.

Agra Europe (British edition) Year: 1990 Issue: No. 1393 Pages: N/1-N/3

1990

บทคัดย่อ

The USSR is likely to produce 215 Mt of grain in 1990, comprising 93 Mt wheat and 109.3 Mt coarse grains. This would be a small increase on the 1989 output of 211.1 Mt and a 9% shortfall on the official target of 236 Mt. This production level will do little to relieve the serious political problems now gripping the USSR. Current unrest is centred on the problem of inadequate food supplies and the pricing reforms introduced to improve production and distribution. Despite these reforms, production is showing only modest increases and the amounts of food grains which the farmers are prepared to sell to the state are continuing to decline. Supplies of food to the shops remain erratic and largely inadequate and the dependency on imports is likely to remain at high levels. The government may be forced to abandon their reforms which might have established some rational basis for the pricing structure of the food supply and distribution sectors. Retail prices in state stores, which handle 66% of total food sales by value, have not changed since the 1950s for staple foods like bread and flour and not since 1962 for livestock products. Subsidies on beef, pigmeat, sheepmeat and dairy products increased markedly in the 1980s. Reform of this system may reduce food supplies for the lower paid. Current price distortions also lead to wheat being fed to livestock instead of sold to the state for human consumption. Measures are also being taken to reduce the high postharvest losses of food (and the deterioration in post-farm processing and distribution), currently estimated at 25%. A major objective for balancing supply and demand is the loosening of state control of the state and collective farms responsible for around 75% of total food production.