Documents / FOIA release
This Joint Committee Print, dated December 8, 1982, gathers studies that the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence prepared for the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress. It gives estimates of Soviet gross national product for 1950 to 1980, with indexes of industrial production, agricultural production and consumption, and explains the methods and data behind them. The foreword says official Soviet statistics inflate growth and that the CIA measures offer a more accurate picture. The document contains no UFO material.
“Gross”60+ pages
Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421 An Index of Agricultural Production in the USSR I. Summary The CIA index of Soviet net agricultural production measures trends in the value of agricultural produc- tion available for sale and home consumption for each year in the USSR since 1950. The output index measures production in the year in which it is pro- duced, although some of this production may be marketed or consumed in subsequent years. The index is devised to measure agriculture’s contribution to Soviet GNP. The index also has served as the basis for international comparisons of farm output and for studies of productivity in Soviet agriculture. The following tabulation shows the relatively close corre- spondence of the CIA index and other major indexes of Soviet agricultural production. Average Annual Percentage Rates of Growth 1951-79 1961-70 1971-79 Indexes of net output CIA 3.0 3.7 0.9 US Department of Agriculture 3.1 3.6 1.5 Indexes of gross output CIA 3.2 3.6 1.2 Official Soviet 3.2 3.3 1.4 The CIA index is based on output of 28 individual crops, ten livestock products, and four items of live- stock inventory change. When the CIA index is calculated on a gross basis and compared with the official Soviet index of gross output, the livestock component covers about 95 percent of the Soviet measure of livestock products and the crop component about 80 percent of crop production. We assume that the trend in output of residual crop and livestock products is the same as that of the price-weighted aggregate of commodities included in the sample. In the CIA index, grain and potatoes make up over half of crop output while meat and milk dominate livestock production. The CIA index omits production of hay and other forage crops, decorative plants, fishing, fur production, and minor livestock products such as feathers, beeswax, and silkworm eggs. Also excluded are manure and “unfinished production” included in the Soviet definition of gross agricultural production. Output estimates in the CIA index are largely based on Soviet agricultural statistics. Estimates are made, however, where data are missing. Official production statistics are corrected as necessary for measurement error, or where Soviet data seriously overstate usable or standard-weight output. The physical production data for the commodities in the index are aggregated for the most part with average prices received by all producers for products sold in 1970, into two subsector indexes—one for crops and the other for livestock output. Average realized prices for the majority of commodities can be estimated with adequate reliabil- ity. In some cases, however, state procurement prices had to be substituted even though they are less desirable since they exclude collective farm market prices. Despite this bias, sensitivity tests indicate that price weights are not a major source of error in the index. Much less certain are the estimates of intra-agricul- tural use of farm output—seed and feed—that are deducted from gross output to derive net agricultural production. Seed estimates are based on annual sown area data and on officially prescribed seeding rates for a fixed period. The use of a constant seeding rate probably introduces an element of error, yet seed estimates are relatively more reliable than those for feed. Although estimates of grain fed derive from official data, estimates of potatoes fed are particularly tentative for years where official data are lacking. Only occasional Soviet statements on quantities of whole milk and vegetables fed are available to derive estimates of quantities fed. Quantities of other com- modities fed are too small to be a source of substantial error. A potentially more important source of error is the paucity and unreliability of published Soviet agricul- tural statistics. Although data are more plentiful now 251 Approved for Release: 2019/07/19 C05210421
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FOIA release, from the cia-readingroom collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is under it. 399 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.