Russia Is Exporting More Wheat Than Any Country in 25 Years

[vostok]

It’s been a long time since any country shipped out as much wheat as Russia.



As estimates for the Black Sea nation’s harvest keep growing, so does the outlook for exports. The world’s top exporter is now expected to sell 36.6 million metric tons overseas, according to consultants SovEcon and the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, or IKAR. The U.S. was the last nation to ship out more, a quarter century ago.

Helped by fertile soil and more farm investment, Russian wheat output has boomed in recent years and allowed the country to grab market share from major exporters like the U.S. and Canada. Russia’s ever-growing harvests have also added to a global glut of the grain that pushed benchmark futures in Chicago down 50 percent since mid-2012.

Russia’s most recent harvest turned out bigger than expected as favorable spring and summer weather boosted yields. The record crop and relatively weak ruble has kept Russian grain competitive, while ports have coped with bigger supplies as mild winter conditions kept shipping lanes open later than usual.

New markets for the country’s grain “allows Russia to maintain a record pace of wheat exports,” SovEcon said on its website. One example is Venezuela, where Russia has been sending cargoes every month since starting shipments to the country in August, it said.

SovEcon and IKAR’s estimate for Russian shipments are bigger than the forecast from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which pegs this season’s amount at 36 million tons. That would still be the most since America exported 36.8 million tons in the 1992-93 season, U.S. government data show.

However, the amount is still way below the 48.2 million tons that U.S. exports peaked at in the early 1980s. American shipments remained high for much of that decade, partly as the former Soviet Union relied on overseas purchases.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...rting-more-wheat-than-any-country-in-25-years
It is interesting, Russia was wheat importer since 50's or 60's till 2003.

 

[Solomon2]

It is interesting, Russia was wheat importer since 50's or 60's till 2003.

Imports of wheat to Russia began as "famine relief" almost as soon as the Bolsheviks took over (link) and continued in open or secret for most of the decades of Communist rule.

No more collective farms and so Russia has returned to its historical role as a major exporter of wheat.

Looking forward to Russia's specialty varieties of grain being exported in quantity: high-quality buckwheat, grasses renowned for their use in making vodka, etc.

 

[rambro]

Grass surprisingly is the Catalyst for human civilization

 

[vostok]

Imports of wheat to Russia began as "famine relief" almost as soon as the Bolsheviks took over (link) and continued in open or secret for most of the decades of Communist rule.

No more collective farms and so Russia has returned to its historical role as a major exporter of wheat.

Looking forward to Russia's specialty varieties of grain being exported in quantity: high-quality buckwheat, grasses renowned for their use in making vodka, etc.

This is not true. The USSR began a large wheat import in the time of Khrushchev, who made unsuccessful agrarian reform. For example, during Stalin's time, the collective farm got all the super-profits after achievement of the plan. This means that all members of the collective farm were directly interested in the effectiveness of their labor - more products, more wages. Khrushchev destroyed this system. Now the state took all the profits from the farm above the plan. It becomes irrelevant how you work - you get exactly the same wage.
Khrushchev essentially destroyed all the collective and private farms and plants in the USSR, which under Stalin produced up to 50% of all food and light industry products.
Import in 1946-1991

 

[Theparadox]

Trade will increased more when INSTC kicks in

 

[Solomon2]

@vostok: please work on your English skills, as it is unclear whether your statement, "This is not true" is meant to describe your post or mine.

Regardless, the data you post only shows that Russia didn't import grain in the 1950s, right? Communist rule was 1920s to 1980s and the USSR imported grain in every decade other than the 1930s and 1950s. (In the thirties the USSR exported grain even as the Ukraine was starved: link.)

 

[vostok]

@vostok: please work on your English skills, as it is unclear whether your statement, "This is not true" is meant to describe your post or mine.

Regardless, the data you post only shows that Russia didn't import grain in the 1950s, right? Communist rule was 1920s to 1980s and the USSR imported grain in every decade other than the 1930s and 1950s. (In the thirties the USSR exported grain even as the Ukraine was starved: link.)

Yes, my English sucks, I know it. The last famine in USSR was in 1932-1933 (not just in Ukraine, in whole Southern regions - Ukraine, South of Russia, Kazakhstan) and there was another one in 1946 - after the War. USSR did not import wheat in 30-50's because collective farms worked well enough in that time. As I said in pre-Kruschev era collective farms were really collective farms - members of those farms were interested in constant improving of laibor effectiveness - all extra-profits above state-plan remained in farms and were shared between members of collective farm. There were also plenty of private plants producing alcohol, clothes, furniture and so on - up to 50% of all food and light industry of USSR were in collective or private property. That fool Kruschev ruined this. State began to take all profits that were above plan. And even more - if your collective farm made 120% of plan - next year this 120% becomes new plan, new 100%. Nobody were interested in laibor effectiveness any more - you got your wage no matter how you work. This was a beginnig of the end of USSR industry and agriculture and economy as a whole.

 

[Solomon2]

As I said in pre-Kruschev era collective farms were really collective farms - members of those farms were interested in constant improving of laibor effectiveness - all extra-profits above state-plan remained in farms and were shared between members of collective farm. There were also plenty of private plants producing alcohol, clothes, furniture and so on -

I think you're being fooled by the old propaganda:

"...Stalin’s reluctance to consider life’s realities, and the fact that he was not aware of the real state of affairs in the provinces, can be illustrated by his direction of agriculture.

All those who interested themselves even a little in the national situation saw the difficult situation in agriculture, but Stalin never even noted it. Did we tell Stalin about this? Yes, we told him, but he did not support us. Why? Because Stalin never traveled anywhere, did not meet city and kolkhoz workers. He did not know the actual situation in the provinces.

He knew the country and agriculture only from films. And these films dressed up and beautified the existing situation in agriculture. Many films pictured kolkhoz life such that [farmhouse] tables groaned from the weight of turkeys and geese. Evidently, Stalin thought that it was actually so...

....how much wisdom was contained in the proposal to raise the agricultural tax by 40 billion rubles? None, absolutely none, because the proposal was not based on an actual assessment of the situation but on the fantastic ideas of a person divorced from reality. We are currently beginning slowly to work our way out of a difficult agricultural situation..."

...That fool Kruschev ruined this. State began to take all profits that were above plan. And even more - if your collective farm made 120% of plan - next year this 120% becomes new plan, new 100%. Nobody were interested in laibor effectiveness any more - you got your wage no matter how you work. This was a beginnig of the end of USSR industry and agriculture and economy as a whole.

The mess began under Stalin. Wikipedia lists three main failures of Kruschev's agriculatural initiatives: the botched plan for mass planting of corn (maize), the resistance of machinery workers to becoming kolkhozniks, and listening to the fake scientist Lysenko (until Sakharov destroyed Lysenko, I suppose.)

 

[vostok]

I think you're being fooled by the old propaganda:

Oh, those beautiful liberal stories about Stalin, stories of his most loyal acolytes who suddenly became his arcememies after his death. "Stalin commanded Red Army using the geograthical globe", "Stalin was paranoid lunatic", "Stalin did not know the real life of Soviet people"... Good old liberal propaganda. He made mostly backward and peasant USSR, ruined after 10 years of WW1 and Civil War, the second economy of the planet Earth and the most powerfull military state (may be in the whole human history). You can't achieve this if you are some sort of caricature villain. He was like Russian Caesar Augustus, even greater because unlike Augustus Stain was from very poor family.

 

[Solomon2]

Oh, those beautiful liberal stories about Stalin -

It's from Khruschev's 1956 "secret" speech before the Central Committee.

 

[Torch_v2.0]

Oh, those beautiful liberal stories about Stalin, stories of his most loyal acolytes who suddenly became his arcememies after his death. "Stalin commanded Red Army using the geograthical globe", "Stalin was paranoid lunatic", "Stalin did not know the real life of Soviet people"... Good old liberal propaganda. He made mostly backward and peasant USSR, ruined after 10 years of WW1 and Civil War, the second economy of the planet Earth and the most powerfull military state (may be in the whole human history). You can't achieve this if you are some sort of caricature villain. He was like Russian Caesar Augustus, even greater because unlike Augustus Stain was from very poor family.

Good luck with Troll(@Solomon2 ) Friend !

 

[vostok]

Good luck with Troll(@Solomon2 ) Friend !

It's okay. It is good-made and very qualitative propaganda, true parallel reality. At the time, most Soviet people believed in all this nonsense (and me too when I was at school), and as a result we lost our state, and all the achievments made by blood and sweat of our fathers became dust.

 

[Solomon2]

...You can't achieve this if you are some sort of caricature villain. He was like Russian Caesar Augustus, even greater because unlike Augustus Stain was from very poor family.

...But let us return to our brave divisional commander, who so resolutely directed 4,000 soldiers to carry out unofficial work. He was a bold man, but he took a calculated risk. Neither the district staff nor the army staff could reproach him for anything, because Army General Yakubovskiy had consented to make his unofficial visit, thus allowing the divisional commander to prepare an appropriate welcome for him.
Having allotted jobs to every soldier in his division, he ordered the chief of staff to take charge of building materials, and his deputy to organise the complete renovation of the whole barracks. He, together with the chief of the Political Department, busied himself with the most important task of all - the planning of the reception itself.
There was not much time left, only two months at the most, during which it was necessary to learn by heart the life history of our beloved general, to select from it the most striking and memorable details, and to prepare suitable questions; seemingly innocent questions, but ones which would stimulate the general to go into detail about his most heroic and amazing feats. It was also necessary to organise a competition among the young officers, to choose those who would ask questions from the floor, as well as supplementary questions, and then to carry out lengthy training for both these groups. Another competition was arranged to discover the best painters and craftsmen, who were then ordered to draw a gigantic map pinpointing events in the commander's war career and to prepare souvenirs to be presented by the personnel of our division. And, of course, there would be a big concert and banquet, to be laid on by the Political Department and the chief of the divisional rear services.
In the competition among young officers, I happened to be one of those selected and, at the distribution of roles, became the third relief for the officer who had to ask: 'Comrade Commander, please tell us how you shoed Churchill.'
All my friends and I too had heard this story a thousand times, and now we had to stimulate Yakubovskiy into telling it yet again. During the war, Great Britain provided the Soviet Union with Churchill tanks. But they were not ideally suited to the conditions of a Russian winter, and their tracks skidded on the snow. Then, one of the soldiers in Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubovskiy's tank brigade proposed putting spikes on the caterpillar tracks, as a result of which the practicability of using the tanks in the snow increased greatly. That very day, it was reported to the front commander that Yakubovskiy's brigade had 'shoed' Churchill. At a suitable moment, the front commander reported to Stalin that Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubovskiy had shoed Churchill. The joke pleased Stalin and the Lieutenant-Colonel after many months at the rear in the front line reserve, became a Hero of the Soviet Union and a personal favourite of Stalin. Gradually, with the rise of Yakubovskiy, this story began to change in detail and became encrusted with new heroic overtones.
These two months preparation for our important guest in a small Ukrainian town called Oster were for me the very best time in the whole of my service in the training division. My soldiers were working away somewhere, I did not know exactly where. Every morning after breakfast, all those who had been selected to put questions to our guest gathered in the officers' mess and the rehearsal started: first question, first question understudy, second question, second understudy, etcetera. After a week of intensive training, a theatre director was invited down from Kiev and the whole thing started to go with a swing.
There is no doubt that our commander was a genius, but even if he had been an absolute idiot we could have turned him, in the space of two months, into a veritable Napoleon Bonaparte. That, at least, was the considered opinion of all the division's officers, of everyone who took part in the preparations for the reception of our beloved general.
After marinading for a month in this extraordinary ragout I fully understood the whole process of the cult of the personality for the rest of my life. It became quite obvious to me why we loved Lenin and Brezhnev so much, and why we loved Khrushchev and Stalin so much. All of us who were preparing for the reception of Yakubovskiy were mere amateurs, we were about to glorify one of the sixteen district commanders, not even the Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces; we had a mere two months at our disposal. Give me a couple of years, a staff of professional speakers and all the State's resources at my disposal, with the right to annihilate if necessary millions of dissatisfied people, and I will create for you from a bald, stuttering, impotent, mad Herod, a genius for all times and for all peoples!

- excerpt from The Liberators: My Life in the Soviet Army (1981) by "Viktor Suvorov".

 

[vostok]

...But let us return to our brave divisional commander, who so resolutely directed 4,000 soldiers to carry out unofficial work. He was a bold man, but he took a calculated risk. Neither the district staff nor the army staff could reproach him for anything, because Army General Yakubovskiy had consented to make his unofficial visit, thus allowing the divisional commander to prepare an appropriate welcome for him.
Having allotted jobs to every soldier in his division, he ordered the chief of staff to take charge of building materials, and his deputy to organise the complete renovation of the whole barracks. He, together with the chief of the Political Department, busied himself with the most important task of all - the planning of the reception itself.
There was not much time left, only two months at the most, during which it was necessary to learn by heart the life history of our beloved general, to select from it the most striking and memorable details, and to prepare suitable questions; seemingly innocent questions, but ones which would stimulate the general to go into detail about his most heroic and amazing feats. It was also necessary to organise a competition among the young officers, to choose those who would ask questions from the floor, as well as supplementary questions, and then to carry out lengthy training for both these groups. Another competition was arranged to discover the best painters and craftsmen, who were then ordered to draw a gigantic map pinpointing events in the commander's war career and to prepare souvenirs to be presented by the personnel of our division. And, of course, there would be a big concert and banquet, to be laid on by the Political Department and the chief of the divisional rear services.
In the competition among young officers, I happened to be one of those selected and, at the distribution of roles, became the third relief for the officer who had to ask: 'Comrade Commander, please tell us how you shoed Churchill.'
All my friends and I too had heard this story a thousand times, and now we had to stimulate Yakubovskiy into telling it yet again. During the war, Great Britain provided the Soviet Union with Churchill tanks. But they were not ideally suited to the conditions of a Russian winter, and their tracks skidded on the snow. Then, one of the soldiers in Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubovskiy's tank brigade proposed putting spikes on the caterpillar tracks, as a result of which the practicability of using the tanks in the snow increased greatly. That very day, it was reported to the front commander that Yakubovskiy's brigade had 'shoed' Churchill. At a suitable moment, the front commander reported to Stalin that Lieutenant-Colonel Yakubovskiy had shoed Churchill. The joke pleased Stalin and the Lieutenant-Colonel after many months at the rear in the front line reserve, became a Hero of the Soviet Union and a personal favourite of Stalin. Gradually, with the rise of Yakubovskiy, this story began to change in detail and became encrusted with new heroic overtones.
These two months preparation for our important guest in a small Ukrainian town called Oster were for me the very best time in the whole of my service in the training division. My soldiers were working away somewhere, I did not know exactly where. Every morning after breakfast, all those who had been selected to put questions to our guest gathered in the officers' mess and the rehearsal started: first question, first question understudy, second question, second understudy, etcetera. After a week of intensive training, a theatre director was invited down from Kiev and the whole thing started to go with a swing.
There is no doubt that our commander was a genius, but even if he had been an absolute idiot we could have turned him, in the space of two months, into a veritable Napoleon Bonaparte. That, at least, was the considered opinion of all the division's officers, of everyone who took part in the preparations for the reception of our beloved general.
After marinading for a month in this extraordinary ragout I fully understood the whole process of the cult of the personality for the rest of my life. It became quite obvious to me why we loved Lenin and Brezhnev so much, and why we loved Khrushchev and Stalin so much. All of us who were preparing for the reception of Yakubovskiy were mere amateurs, we were about to glorify one of the sixteen district commanders, not even the Commander-in-Chief, Land Forces; we had a mere two months at our disposal. Give me a couple of years, a staff of professional speakers and all the State's resources at my disposal, with the right to annihilate if necessary millions of dissatisfied people, and I will create for you from a bald, stuttering, impotent, mad Herod, a genius for all times and for all peoples!

- excerpt from The Liberators: My Life in the Soviet Army (1981) by "Viktor Suvorov".

If all people from other side of the Earth will know about USSR and Russia from the kind of Viktor Suvorov, Kruschev, Saharov and so on - it is good. It means you know nothing.
In reality, USSR has almost no growth relatively to Western states after Stalin's death.

 

[Solomon2]

If all people from other side of the Earth will know about USSR and Russia from the kind of Viktor Suvorov, Kruschev, Saharov and so on - it is good. It means you know nothing.

Today's Russia may be different but why should that mean idealizing a grotesque past?