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 period immediately preceding and during harvest.“ Wet harvesting conditions tend to raise moisture content of harvested grain to levels above internation- ally accepted standards. Excess moisture inflates bunker weight output statistics and increases chances of subsequent losses from spoilage. Although Soviet postharvest cleaning and drying is intended to restore_ wet grain to full value, the wetter the harvesting conditions, the more difficult this becomes. Mishan- dled wet grain may be grossly damaged or entirely ‘s£>2>i1¢a‘ for one or more of its intended Buses. F0? the fall-sown winter grains, the months are June and July, and for spring grain, August and September. For each year in the index, the periods are categorized by degree of “wetness”: very dry, dry, normal, wet, and very wet according to the average number of millime- ters of rainfall received, as follows: °' ___~* _ _ Spring Wheat Winter Wheat f_ E1wit ?_ Over 45.8 Over 76.3 Wet 40.5 45.7 965.3 - 76.2 Emma... ._.__-__35-3 -.4°~4 53.8 - 65.2 _ Dry 29.6 - 35.2 __ 42.3 - 53.7 Very dry Below 29.5 Below 42.2 Each moisture category, in turn, is assigned a percent- age grain discount; a discount of 11 percent is adopted for years of normal precipitation.“ We arbitrarily "° The theory that variation from average precipitation during harvesting is the main determinant of moisture and foreign matter in harvested grain was set forth in U.S. Department of Agriculture, ERS, Methodology for Estimating Variations in Soviet Bunker Weight Grain Crops, 1975, (unpublished). Although the grain discount also includes extraneous matter and unripe and damaged kernels, no systematic separate methodology has been devised to measure them. Excess moisture is believed to be the largest and most variable component of waste with the greatest impact on trends in output. Amounts of damaged kernels also fluctuate widely, but they probably have a smaller impact on trends. "‘ Precipitation data are compiled by the US Air Force. Mean monthly precipitation data by oblast for each two-month period are weighted by the respective sown area ofispring and winter wheat. _ "2 The average discount of 11 percent was derived indirectly from a rough calculation based on quality (feed unit or nutritive value) of concentrates fed on state and collective farms. (See_A (ER) 75-68, 'pp. 13-15.) Because of the way the official series on concentrated feed is constructed, much of the exaggeration in Soviet grain production statistics resulting from excessive moisture, dirt, da- maged kernels, weed seeds, and the like, (waste), appears in the data on quantities of concentrates fed. Grain makes up roughly 85 ‘percent of the total tonnage of concentrates fed (see ibid., p. 33). Our hypothesis is based on the difference between a) the average feed unit value of concentrates fed as derived from published Soviet raise this figure to 13 percent for wet years and to 15 percent for very wet years. In the other direction, 11 percent is lowered to 9 percent for dry years and to 7 percent for very dry conditions. The discounts for winter and spring grains are weighted together using 30 percent for winter grains and 70 percent for spring grains. These weights reflect the approximate per- centage of spring and winter grains in total output. °’ For 1950-59, weather related discounts must take into account the fact that 1950-54 official output statistics probably understate the actual crop. For 1950-54, therefore, the weather-related discount is not ap- plied.“ For 1955-59, the necessary monthly precipita- tion data are not available. For this period, the 1960 weather-related discount is moved back using an statistics (Selkhoz 1971, pp. 332-333) and b) an average feed unit value derived from the quantities of grain by type available for feed (from the grain balances) over the same years, 1961-70 pp. 25-29). We assume the assortment of grain actually fed is the same as that of estimated grain available for feed. When these tonnage flgures are converted to feed units using standard Soviet norms (sec G. V. Kulik, Spravochnik ekonomista kolkhoza i sovkhoza, Moscow, 1970, p. 538), the resulting average feed unit value is substantially higher than the average derived from the published series. The , discrepancy~which we attribute to waste including higher mois- ture~ranged from 12 percent to 21 percent over the 10-year period for which the data were available. Because we assume the waste level to be uniform for the entire crop on the supply side, the overall discount rate must be smaller. In crop year 1967/68, for example, the estimated waste in feed is 20 percent. The tonnage represents about 8 percent of grain produced in that year. Quantities of waste as shares of output ranged from 4.3 to 11.6 percent over the 10-year period; the average was 8 percent which we adopted as an average discount. To this we add a 3-percent allowance for losses in transportation and handling (A (ER) 75-68, p. 18). Although in theory subsequent losses of grain need not be applied for purposes of estimating net output, they are included in order to be consistent with our estimates of grain balances and grain fed. °’ We recognize that equating these moisture categories with specific waste levels implies a more precise and consistent relation- ship between precipitation and grain waste than actually exists in fact. To date, however, this is the most satisfactory, consistent methodology developed to measure fluctuations in grain waste. “ Despite the presumed understatement in offlcial Soviet grain output statistics in those years, excess moisture and waste existed. See, for example, the statement that waste, shrinkage in drying, and postharvest losses amounted to 5.1 percent of 1953 gross grain output in kolkhozes. (A.I. Gozulov, Statistika sel'skogo kh0- zyaystva, Moscow, 1959, p. 450.) See also Nancy Nimitz, RM- 4l27-PR, Soviet Government Grain Procurements, Dispositions, and Stocks, I940, 1945-63. Rand Corporation, November, 1964, p. 4. We omit the weather-related discount for these years in our estimates of net grain output only to compensate for the understate- ment in offlcial statistics. We do not imply that these losses did not exist or that farm statistical reports did not contain bunker weight output data. 268 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.