Was the USSR Producing Enough Food?

Washington, D.C., November 20, 2024 – The failure of the U.S. intelligence community to adequately warn policymakers about the poor Soviet grain harvest of 1972—resulting in higher food prices in the U.S. and severe criticism of the Nixon administration—led the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to begin to rely on imagery from LANDSAT and classified photoreconnaissance satellite programs to improve its estimates of Soviet agricultural output, according to documents featured in a new National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book written by James David, retired curator of national security space programs at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum.

The new collection consists of declassified intelligence reports, top-level policy memos, and other formerly secret records that illustrate and describe the evolution of U.S. efforts to monitor Soviet agricultural production during the Cold War—from the early reliance on human intelligence (HUMINT) reports to the use of sophisticated space technologies in the 1970s.

Highlights of the new Electronic Briefing Book include:

• A 1946 report from the Central Intelligence Group showing the role that HUMINT played in acquiring information about Soviet agriculture at the dawn of the Cold War. (Document 1)
• A 1951 CIA report describing a clandestine operation by the Directorate of Plans to secretly obtain samples of Soviet wheat and rye exports. (Document 4)
• A March 1954 document that is believed to be the first of many CIA briefings for the National Security Council on the subject of Soviet agriculture. (Document 6)
• A detailed trip report from Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman’s 1963 trip to the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries that shows the continuing importance of HUMINT in evaluating Communist agricultural programs (and an attached note from Director of Central Intelligence John McCone showing the Agency’s “keen interest” in the results of Freeman’s trip). (Document 14)
• A September 1963 CIA report explaining why, since 1958, the Agency had been producing its own approximations of Soviet agricultural output rather than rely on inflated Soviet estimates and noting that its numbers had been “consistently far below Soviet claims.” (Document 15)
• A declassified inventory of Agency reports from the period leading up to the poor 1972 Soviet grain harvest—one of several indications that the CIA was largely accurate in predicting a downturn in agricultural output. (Document 18)

Other records describe the CIA’s first steps in the 1960s toward using overhead photography to help produce crop estimates. Documents from the mid-1970s illustrate the increasingly critical role of unclassified imagery from LANDSAT, developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in combination with classified imagery from other satellite programs, in the preparation of Soviet crop estimates.

David is the author of several National Security Archive briefing books on intelligence community efforts against the Soviet target and also donated his Radiological Warfare Collection to the Archive.

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Was the USSR Producing Enough Food?

U.S. Intelligence Community Monitoring of Soviet Agriculture during the Cold War

By James David

The inability of a nation to adequately feed its population can have major domestic and foreign repercussions. It can result in loss of popular support for the government and social unrest. Food shortages can also decrease output in other sectors of the economy, reduce agricultural exports that earn foreign exchange or serve as an instrument of foreign policy, and, if severe, can affect military readiness. The use of foreign exchange holdings to acquire foodstuffs from other countries can result in decreased purchases of other needed goods from abroad. Large purchases can disturb domestic markets in the exporting nations and disrupt international markets. Accordingly, foreign agriculture was one of many important economic intelligence targets for the United States during the Cold War. As was the case for virtually all political, military, and economic intelligence targets, the highest priority country was the USSR.[1]

Overview of Soviet Agriculture

In the Soviet economy, the government, not the market, determined the allocation of resources and what goods and services would be produced. A small group of top leaders comprising the Council of Ministers established the production goals for each sector of the economy. They were assisted by central planning bodies that provided the detailed schedules and resource allocations needed to achieve them. In the agricultural sector, the Council established output goals for all crops and dairy and meat products and determined the total acreage to be used for each output. Industries supporting agriculture—such as fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, transportation, and food processing—each had their own production goals. During most of the existence of the USSR, heavy industry and defense production were the top priorities, and other sectors of the economy were left with whatever resources remained. Output goals and resource allocations were set forth in Five- or Seven-Year Plans, which were further broken down into yearly and quarterly Plans. Authorities often revised these during their lifetimes and issued numerous directives for every sector. The centralization of decision making required detailed instructions to the subordinate units on inputs into production and related issues. In turn, the subordinate units submitted lengthy statistical reports.[2]

The agricultural sector had three parts—collective farms, state farms, and privately managed plots. All land was owned by the state. Collective farms represented a pooling of the land and labor of many small peasant farms. Each worker was paid according to the amount and type of work performed, adjusted depending on several factors. The state exercised considerable control, while workers were paid fixed wages. Virtually all the production on collective and state farms went to the state. Collective and state farms accounted for over 95 percent of the sown area, with the balance in the private sector, consisting of families at collective and state farms that gardened small plots and owned livestock. Authorities limited the size of the plots and the number of livestock and, until 1958, took a share of the production. Despite its small size, the private sector contributed a major share of selected vegetables and fruits. For this reason, the state permitted the non-socialist private sector to exist.[3]

The USSR had about one-sixth of the total land area of the world, with about 11 percent under cultivation. Most of this was in the “fertile triangle” that extended from Leningrad to Odessa to Lake Baikal. Growing seasons were short because of the country’s northern location. Annual precipitation in the farming regions, as well as irrigation, was significantly less than that of most comparable areas in the United States and other major agricultural nations.[4]

Wheat was the most important grain and food crop and was cultivated on more acreage than any other crop. Rye was another grain utilized for food. Small amounts of both were also used as livestock feed, seed, and by industry. Although hay and other forage crops normally provided a large amount of livestock feed, grains grown mostly for that purpose included barley, corn, and oats. Potatoes were the second most important food crop. Sugar beets were the only domestic source of sugar. Sunflower seed accounted for most of the edible vegetable oil. Cotton and flax were the leading fiber crops.[5]

Throughout the Cold War, agriculture proved to be one of the weakest sectors of the Soviet economy. A growing population for several decades after the war, the desire to satisfy export commitments and minimize imports and the goal to provide more and better food to the citizenry required steady increases in production. The output of crops and livestock products grew over the decades, but there were often large annual fluctuations or periods of little or no growth. Domestic production accounted for most of the food, feed, and industrial crops consumed or used. Small amounts were exported to communist countries and, on occasion, other nations. Imports were initially low in the postwar period. However, with the increasing emphasis on improving the diet by providing more livestock products and the frequent inability of domestic production and reserve stocks to meet the demand for grain, imports began to increase significantly in the 1960s.[6]

Sources of and Production of Intelligence

In the United States, there was a massive reduction in the personnel and the budgets devoted to the armed forces, the State Department, and the succession of clandestine intelligence agencies that existed after World War II. As a result, almost all of the limited intelligence resources that remained initially were allocated toward higher priority political and military targets rather than economic targets. As additional personnel and funding was authorized beginning later in the decade, there was a slow but steady growth in the amount of raw economic intelligence acquired and the number of finished reports prepared and disseminated to users. National Security Council Intelligence Directive No. 2 from 1948 assigned collection responsibilities for economic intelligence to “each agency in accordance with its respective needs.” The directive, however, did not task any agencies to produce specific types of economic intelligence.[7]

The State Department and, beginning in 1947, the CIA, did most of the limited collection and reporting that occurred in the immediate postwar period. The majority of reports were classified. In the CIA, the primary office for analysis and preparing finished intelligence was initially the Office of Reports and Estimates, followed, beginning in 1950, by its successor, the Office of Research and Reports. The latter soon formed the Food and Agriculture Branch, staffed with agronomists and other experts, to analyze and publish finished intelligence on foreign agriculture. It retained that name under the new Office of Economic Research in 1967 and then became the Agricultural Assessments Branch in 1981 under the new Office of Global Issues. Various offices in the State Department performed the same tasks, including the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The Department of Agriculture overtly gathered data on foreign agriculture and published unclassified reports. Both the State Department and CIA established liaison with the department in the late 1940s, and these relationships grew in the following years.[8]

To improve the quantity and quality of economic intelligence, the National Security Council tasked the Director of Central Intelligence in 1950 to lead an interagency study on the subject. The report, issued early the following year, recommended that no specific allocation of responsibility be given to individual agencies but that an interagency Economic Intelligence Committee be formed to review requirements, coordinate the effort, and occasionally publish reports. The Intelligence Advisory Committee quickly established the new committee, and one of the groups formed under it was the Subcommittee on Agriculture.[9]

Director of Central Intelligence Directive 15/1, approved by the Intelligence Advisory Committee in 1954, assigned primary production responsibility for foreign “military-economic intelligence” to the Department of Defense, all Sino-Soviet Bloc non-military economic intelligence to the CIA, and all non-military economic intelligence outside the Sino-Soviet Bloc to the State Department. All economic intelligence collected by an agency was to be shared with the one having primary production responsibility. Under this and subsequent authorities, the CIA assumed primary responsibility for the Soviet agricultural target during the remainder of the Cold War.[10]

U.S. intelligence agencies sought a wide range of intelligence about Soviet food production, including: information on its organization, governing policies, and directives; figures on the number of workers employed in the sector and the acreage devoted to each crop; information on crop health, weather conditions, output estimates, final production figures, and livestock numbers; data on the manufacture and employment of farm machinery, the production and use of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation systems; and information on the development of improved seeds, the storage and transportation of foodstuffs, food processing, and exports and imports.[11]

U.S. agencies used several sources to obtain this information. Open-source intelligence (OSINT) was a major contributor throughout the Cold War. The Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) of the CIA and the British Broadcasting Corporation divided the monitoring and translating of Soviet radio broadcasts (and later television broadcasts) and freely exchanged all translations. The CIA’s Foreign Documents Division, as well as the State Department and other agencies to a lesser degree, collected and translated Soviet newspapers, journals, economic reports, and other government publications. (The Foreign Documents Division became part of FBIS in 1967.) They also translated covertly acquired documents. These broadcasts and materials contained a wide range of important information, although the Soviets considered some data (such as the allocation of grains to various uses, reserve stocks held by the government, and losses in transportation and storage) to be state secrets and never released them. The routine publication of agricultural statistics was often delayed for many months.[12]

Analysts were skeptical of Soviet production figures because officials had a strong incentive to demonstrate that the state-established production goals were being met or exceeded. In the early 1950s, the CIA began generating its own grain production estimates based on weather data, sown acreage, and, within a few years, occasional direct observations of agricultural areas by Westerners. By the end of the decade, more detailed and systematic weather data and increased information on seeding, harvesting, and state procurements enabled more accurate estimates. Improved tools were developed in the following decades using computers that analyzed additional factors in generating increasingly precise estimates.[13]

Limited data was also acquired through HUMINT. State Department personnel, including the agricultural attaché, and U.S. defense attachés occasionally gathered intelligence on Soviet farming in meetings with Soviet officials, discussions with personnel from allied nations, and from Soviet media. Until the mid-1950s, though, Soviet travel restrictions prevented them from visiting agricultural regions. As a result, they had no opportunity to personally observe farms or talk with farmworkers. After the loosening of these travel restrictions, a small but growing number of delegations that often included both U.S. officials and individuals from the private sector made visits to some of these regions. Although the visits were negotiated with and carefully monitored by the Soviet government, they provided the opportunity for personal observations and discussions with farmers and local agricultural officials. Under Project Wringer from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, U.S. Air Force personnel obtained limited information during interrogations of refugees from the USSR and former Soviet POWs. CIA operatives obtained intelligence from a range of sources, including allied intelligence services and covertly acquired Soviet documents.[14]

Beginning in the 1970s, imagery intelligence (IMINT) acquired by photoreconnaissance satellites became an important source of information on Soviet agriculture. This was the result of CIA studies beginning in 1965 examining the value of aerial photography from U-2 reconnaissance aircraft in estimating crop yields in China. These started with overflights of selected wheat, rice, and sugar fields in the United States for which there was accurate data on yields. Of the various types of film used, color was found to be the best to determine crop vigor. The studies were later expanded to review the potential of photoreconnaissance satellites in this regard, as U-2s could not collect against the Soviet Union and had stopped overflying China in 1968. Several HEXAGON photoreconnaissance satellites that flew from 1971 to 1984 carried small amounts of color film and were the first to make a substantial contribution to intelligence on Soviet and Chinese agriculture. (Color imagery was also valuable against certain other targets.) Undoubtedly, digital imagery acquired by the KENNEN satellite series, first launched in 1976, and its successors also made a significant contribution. However, these programs are still classified, and no details are available.[15]

The CIA began to examine the value of multispectral imagery of Soviet and other foreign agricultural regions shortly after the launch of the first Earth Resources Technology Satellite by NASA in 1972. (The program was redesignated LANDSAT later in the decade as additional satellites were placed into orbit.) This was the first civilian remote sensing satellite and the first robotic satellite to carry a multispectral camera, which can detect wavelengths of light beyond the visible spectrum, such as infrared and ultraviolet. The review found that the imagery was very useful in assessing crop health, as well as soil moisture and nutrient levels. It appears that the CIA started regularly acquiring and using multispectral imagery to estimate grain production in 1974. Although details are not available, the imagery from LANDSAT and the classified photoreconnaissance satellites were not redundant, as each provided different but equally important data on crop conditions.[16]

Weather data on the USSR came from several sources. Both the U.S. Weather Service and the Air Force’s Air Weather Service provided it to the CIA beginning in the late 1940s. The former initially furnished its monthly publication on worldwide weather, while the latter provided ten- and thirty-day precipitation totals, temperatures, and snow cover depth. As both organizations improved their collection and analysis, the data received by the CIA increased in quantity and quality. There was a category of communications intelligence (COMINT) designated Special Weather Intelligence, which in the case of the Soviet Union probably targeted encrypted radio transmissions of the three military weather services. However, since the effort remains completely classified, it is not known exactly what weather data it acquired or whether CIA analysts had access to it. The introduction of weather satellites in the early 1960s provided additional information. From 1960 to 1965, NASA launched ten first-generation TIROS weather satellites. The second-generation NASA weather satellites reached orbit beginning in 1964, and later generations followed thereafter. Because NASA’s spacecraft could not give timely and accurate information of the weather over the Sino-Soviet Bloc for the programming of photoreconnaissance satellite cameras, the National Reconnaissance Office initiated the Defense Meteorological Support Program to meet that requirement, launching the first generation of these satellites in 1962 and later generations beginning in 1965. Their data was classified until 1972, and it is unknown whether CIA analysts had access to it during this period.[17]

Intelligence Reporting on Soviet Agriculture

The first postwar Five-Year Plan for 1946-1950 aimed to rebuild the devastated economy. Its modest goals for agriculture called for a 10 percent increase in production over 1940. During this period, little collection or analysis on the agricultural sector took place because of the higher priority of other targets and scarce resources. Most of the small amount of finished intelligence disseminated to users only briefly summarized a HUMINT or OSINT report. This included entries in the Daily Summary, a brief description of the most important events around the world that the Central Intelligence Group began preparing for the president and a small group of other top officials in early 1946. (The CIA assumed responsibility for it the following year.)

The agricultural goals of the first Five-Year Plan were not met, with the CIA and others only beginning to report on it in detail early in the next decade when they received additional collection and analytical resources. Grain output did not exceed the prewar level until 1952. (All output figures herein are official Soviet figures unless otherwise noted.) With a rapidly growing population (from roughly 170 million at the end of the war to over 200 million by 1950), per capita consumption of food decreased between 10 and 17 percent from prewar levels. The reasons for the failure to meet the goals were many, including unfavorable weather, the fact that the total sown area for all crops did not exceed the prewar level until 1951, slow delivery of farm equipment, and the compulsory mobilization of many farm youths for the industrial and transportation sectors that diverted much-needed labor.[18]  

Much of the finished intelligence on Soviet agriculture beginning in the 1950s was set forth in CIA publications such as Research Aids, Provisional Intelligence Reports, Intelligence Memorandums, and Economic Intelligence Surveys. One set of National Intelligence Estimates published annually from 1953-1957 also briefly addressed agriculture as part of the larger treatment of the Soviet economy. (The CIA’s Board of Estimates prepared these and sent them to the interagency Intelligence Advisory Committee for review and publication.) There were several briefings of the National Security Council by CIA officials, including one in 1954 on a Soviet decree criticizing agricultural failures and lagging grain production and again in 1957 and 1959 on the food situation in the Sino-Soviet Bloc. Short summaries for the president and a few other top officials continued to be included in the Daily Summary and its successors, the Current Intelligence Bulletin and Central Intelligence Bulletin, as well as in other periodic publications with wider distributions. The Departments of Agriculture and State generated a much smaller number of reports.[19]

The Five-Year Plan for 1951-1955 set forth ambitious agricultural goals, including a 40 to 50 percent increase in grain production over 1950. However, little progress was made in the early years. Total agricultural output in 1953 was only three percent above the prewar level, and the daily caloric intake remained slightly below prewar levels. Shortages of meat, sugar, dairy products, and a few other foods were common. CIA grain estimates during this period generally were within five percent of the Soviet figures.[20]

After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the new Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, publicly acknowledged serious problems in the sector and placed a high priority on improving agriculture and the quantity and quality of the average diet. Authorities took numerous steps to achieve these objectives. In 1954, they initiated the New Lands program that developed farmland from virgin and long-fallow land in West Siberia and North Kazakhstan. However, the newly cultivated regions did not have ideal soil or weather and experienced declining productivity over the years. The program soon expanded the sown area for all crops by more than one-third over 1950, and it basically remained at that level for the remainder of the Cold War, as there were few potentially productive areas left to develop. As part of this expansion, the cultivated area for wheat increased by over 50 percent (and for other grains by about 25 percent) within a few years, while the acreage for potatoes and other vegetables remained about the same. Other actions taken included stopping the campaign to end, and lowering taxes on, private plots, accelerating the use of machinery and fertilizers, providing more agricultural and livestock specialists, and revising the procurement system. These measures resulted in major increases in production for many crops, particularly in years that had exceptionally good weather. For example, the total grain output in 1955 set a record. A record for total agricultural production (including grain) was set three years later and represented a 50 percent increase over 1953. From 1954-1958, consumers experienced a small but steady growth in the quality of their diet, although it continued to rely heavily on potatoes and cereal products.[21]

Beginning in 1958, CIA grain output estimates were consistently lower than Soviet figures and by wider margins. For example, the CIA estimate for 1958 was 125 million metric tons while the Soviet Union reported 141 million metric tons. Over the next several years, analysts attributed the increasing variance in these numbers to the CIA’s collection of more and better data and to increased falsification of output by Soviet officials. Additionally, the Soviets apparently began to report “bunker weight” (the weight including excess moisture, trash, dirt, and weeds) instead of “barn harvest” (the weight after cleaning and drying). Analysts believed that the latter was eight to eleven percent below the former.[22]

The Seven-Year Plan for 1959-1965 called for a 70 percent increase in gross agricultural output over 1958. From 1959-1963, however, annual production of grains and almost every other crop fell short of the record year of 1958. The per capita availability of most foods declined or remained stagnant, and there was no improvement in diet. Feed shortages throughout the country resulted in smaller numbers of livestock, and, coupled with price increases for meat, led to major protests in at least one region in 1962. Khrushchev and other leaders repeatedly criticized management of the sector. They quickly implemented an extensive reorganization of agricultural administration, planned major increases in fertilizer and farm machinery production, and expanded the use of irrigation.[23]

Grain output decreased even more in 1963 to 111 million metric tons per Soviet statistics (the CIA estimate was 92 million metric tons). The country imported more than four times as much grain (primarily wheat) than it had in any prior year, representing almost four percent of the total supply. Khrushchev publicly admitted that the imports were needed to avoid rationing. Canada was the largest supplier, but smaller amounts also came from several other countries (including the United States in its first postwar wheat exports to the USSR). Although there was no definitive intelligence on wheat reserves, analysts believed that they were probably low, and that the government was reluctant to draw them down further. Grain output increased by more than one-third in 1964, setting a record. Nevertheless, imports increased to almost six percent of the total supply demonstrating that the demand still exceeded domestic production.[24]

Leonid Brezhnev succeeded Khruschev after the latter’s ouster in 1964. Efforts continued to improve production and the quantity and quality of the diet, particularly raising meat consumption. The measures to accomplish this in the Five-Year Plan for 1966-1970 included using more fertilizers and pesticides, expanding irrigated and drained land, employing improved seed, increasing the supply and quality of feed and the use of vitamins and growth stimulants for livestock, and raising the earnings of farms and farmworkers. Good weather and implementation of many of these measures resulted in greater output for almost all crops and livestock products during most years of the Plan. To satisfy consumer demand for more meat, the share of all grains used for feed increased from one-third in 1966 to almost one-half in 1970. Large amounts of imports continued, ranging from two to five percent of the total supply. Notwithstanding a modest growth in the per capita consumption of meat, milk and milk products, eggs, vegetables, and fruits from 1965 to 1970, about two-thirds of the Soviet diet still consisted of grain and potatoes (compared to less than one-third in the United States).[25]

The Five-Year Plans during the 1970s continued placing the highest priority on providing a better diet. Wheat remained the principal grain, accounting for roughly one-half of all grain produced. However, there was a sizable shift from wheat to feed grains, with barley increasing its share of total grain production since the 1960s to about 25 percent since it usually provided greater yields than spring wheat. There was record grain production in 1970 and a good crop the following year. Unfavorable weather caused a decrease of more than nine percent in the output of all crops (including grains and potatoes) and of almost four percent in livestock products in 1972 over the previous year. To avoid bread shortages and a major decrease in meat, milk, and dairy products, the Soviets imported a record amount of wheat, rye, corn, and soybeans. About two-thirds of the imports came from the United States. Soviet representatives spread out their purchases to not upset the markets and to avoid higher prices for their imports. However, in the United States the purchases eventually resulted in much higher prices for wheat and its products and substantial criticism of the government. Beginning in January of 1972, numerous CIA publications had forecast a poor harvest and predicted increased imports because analysts believed that Soviet reserves were low at a time when it needed more livestock feed and to provide sufficient livestock products. The Agency also quickly reported many of the domestic and foreign purchases the Soviets made. In contrast, the Department of Agriculture’s unclassified reports did not predict a decrease in production until the early summer and did not forecast the increased demand for U.S. grain.[26]

The events led to an interagency study in 1973 under the National Security Council to improve forecasting of Soviet agricultural production, expected imports, and the export demand for U.S. crops the Soviets were purchasing. Among other things, it was to examine the potential role of imagery from NASA’s Earth Resources Technology Satellite and classified photoreconnaissance satellites. There is no further information available on the study, but it undoubtedly recommended using imagery from both systems, since many subsequent CIA intelligence reports heavily relied on LANDSAT and, in the redacted portions, the classified photoreconnaissance satellites. Additionally, in the early 1970s, the CIA developed an improved computerized model to predict yields for each of the grain-growing regions and estimate total grain output. The model, designated UPSTREET, generated estimates early in the growing season that could be further revised every ten days as new weather data was received. Although tests demonstrated the model had errors ranging from two to eight percent in estimating total grain output, it was more accurate than prior methods. The CIA apparently constantly improved the model and used it during the balance of the Cold War.[27]

Although the USSR had excellent harvests in the next two years, in each of those years the country still imported about one-third the amount as in 1973 because domestic production did not satisfy the demand. A dramatic fall in grain production occurred in 1975. The Ford administration suspended sales to the Soviet Union until an agreement was signed preventing disruption to U.S. markets and guaranteeing U.S. farmers a reasonable share of the Soviet market. A record of nearly 26 million metric tons of grain imports the following year helped remedy the shortage in part, with the United States providing almost two-thirds again. Nevertheless, there was still insufficient grain for livestock feed, and the herds had to be reduced. Grain output rebounded and set a record in 1978 with 237 million metric tons, but substantial imports were still made because demand was larger than domestic production. Total agricultural production also set a record that year. Modest growth in per capita consumption of meat, milk and milk products, eggs, vegetables, and fruit took place in the first half the decade and then essentially leveled off.[28]

A decrease in agricultural production in 1979 and in the following two years led to widespread discontent, particularly over the decline in supply of livestock products, fruits, and vegetables. There was increased black market activity, longer queues in stores, and occasional work stoppages. In 1981, imports of grain and meat reached a record 12 percent of the total farm product. Authorities established a temporary rationing system for meat and milk products that year.[29]

Brezhnev and other leaders publicly acknowledged major problems with the agricultural sector. They specifically noted rising consumer discontent with the diet and how the growth in disposable income along with the maintenance of stable prices were together causing demand for food to increasingly outstrip supply. There was significant crop waste and losses, they said, and low rural living standards made it difficult to retain younger workers. The Five-Year Plan for 1981-1985 set ambitious goals for increasing the output of all livestock products and crops throughout the decade, including a nearly 25 percent increase in the production of grain, vegetables, and fruits and an approximately 15 percent increase in livestock products. Brezhnev’s Food Program, implemented beginning in 1982, was a comprehensive effort to improve the production, transportation, storage, and processing of food and thereby increase the quality of the average diet, decrease losses and waste, and cut imports. Among its many provisions were the reorganization of the management of food production, increased investment in the farm sector (production, transportation, storage, food processing, and agricultural machinery), increasing incentives for farm workers and managers, and new production goals for key foods. The CIA’s September 1982 report on The Brezhnev Food Program concluded that for several reasons the production goals would not be met and that the improvements in transportation, storage facilities, and food processing would take nearly a decade to materialize.[30]

Brezhnev died in 1982 and was succeeded by Yuri Andropov, Konstantin Chernenko, and finally Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985, but the Food Program remained in place. Gorbachev initiated several major economic reforms, including a major reorganization of the agencies governing agriculture and measures to increase the autonomy of farms and improving incentives. However, most had not been fully implemented by the time of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.[31]

For unknown reasons, the Soviets did not disclose grain production and yield data for 1981 through 1985 until 1986. Nevertheless, using UPSTREET the CIA made accurate estimates each year when compared to the statistics released in 1986. As an example, for 1981 the CIA estimated 158 million metric tons, while the official Soviet figure released in 1986 was 158.2. The CIA estimate for 1984 was 178 million metric tons, and the official Soviet figure was 172.6. Additionally, the CIA began to make estimates for other major crops, such as potatoes, vegetables, sugar beets, and sunflowers.[32]

Agricultural output improved in 1982 and 1983 because of good weather and the impact of the Food Program. Combined with larger than normal imports of grain, meat, fruits, vegetables, vegetable oil, and sugar, food availability grew noticeably. Total production fell in 1984, and the following year a record of almost 55 million metric tons of grain was imported. Output of grain, sunflower seeds, and livestock products increased modestly from 1985 through 1987 but for most other crops only grew slightly or declined. There was excess demand for food because of government policies that increased disposable income but kept retail food prices stable and low. By 1987, there were reports of shortages of some foodstuffs and an increase in the rationing of meat and butter. Production of most crops and livestock products fell slightly during the next two years. In 1990, the last year of the USSR, output grew noticeably, including the second largest wheat crop ever. Nevertheless, most of the Food Program targets were not met.[33]

Throughout the Cold War, Soviet agriculture suffered from major problems that numerous reforms and decrees never completely overcame. Despite adequately feeding its citizens in terms of caloric intake through domestic production and, beginning in the early 1960s, imports, it was never able to provide sufficient amounts of the high-quality foods they desired.[34]