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 Table 6 lntrasector Use of Agricultural Output, Annual Averages, Selected Years 1950-52 1959-61 Million 1970 rubles 1964-66 1969-71 1977-7_9____ Seed Grain 2139.7 2478.2 2817.7 2624.4 2738.6 Potatoes 1818.7 1991.6 1841.4 _ 1803.1 1525.8 Total 3958.4 4469.7 4659. l 4428.1 4264.4 Seed as a share of gross crop output 17.0 13.7 12.1 10.1 5-L” Feed and hatching eggs Grain 1298.8 3400.0 3852.2 _ 6011.6 9308.6 i Potatoes 1350.3 2370.9 2251.2 2467.5 we-1>_ Vegetables 25.3 145.7 186.8 , 117.2 193.2 Milk 908.1 1574.5 1679.1 2221.3 we-2._ Total feed 3582.6 7491.1 7969.3 _ 10377.6 14172.2 _ Hatching eggs 35.3 108.7 94.2 175.0 324.4 Total intrasector use 3617.9 7599.8 8063.5 11052.6 14496.6 lntrasector use as a share 16.8 of gross livestock output 18.8 18.2 20.3 22.2 Shortcomings of the seed estimates center on the 4 seeding rates. We use a constant seeding rate for the entire 1950-79 period whereas the actual rate prob- ably has changed over time. Evidence indicates, fur- thermore, that our seeding rates may be too low. One Soviet source claims that 20 centners per hectare of potatoes were seeded during 1962-65 and 25 centners during 1967-69." We estimate potato seeding at '19 centners per hectare for all years. In the case of grain,‘ a Soviet writer claims that seed use averaged 30.8 million tons per year during 1971-75." Our estimates show average seed use of 26 million tons during the period. The grain calculations may understate actual use because the norms refer to ‘first-class’ seed, which exceeds the quality of much seed grain.” As of 1 January 1979, for example, only 71 percent of seed " Zakupki selkkokhozyaystvennykh produktov, no. 3, 1973, p. 18. " Plan khoz, no. 3, 1979, p. 38. See also, Pravda Ukrainy, 15 July 1979, p. 2, which argues that farms incorrectly increase the norms for seeding, and notes that increasing the norm does not make up for poor soil preparation, poor use of fertilizer, and so on. Zakupki sel'sk0zyaystvennykh produktov, no. 1, 1978, p. 6, implies that during 1971-75, farms sowed from 22 to 37 million tons annually. ” First-class seed is seed with no more than 1 percent (by weight) content of broken kernels and admixtures and with viability not less than 95 percent. for spring grain and pulse crops met standards for first or second class seed.“ Presumably, the lower the seed quality the more seed is required for a given area. B. Estimates of Livestock Feed and Hatching Eggs We estimate quantities of grain, potatoes, vegetables, and whole milk fed to livestock. We do not estimate quantities of skim milk fed for reasons discussed below. Finally, although some fruit is fed to livestock in the USSR—largely because of marketing prob- lems~—we make no estimates of the quantities because of data limitations.” Estimating feed fed to livestock poses many more problems than deriving estimates of seed use. The CIA index includes the value of feed produced and used within agriculture such as hay, corn for silage, feed roots, and pasture feed in the value of livestock output. Although it would be more correct to add their value to crop production and deduct it from " Ibid. Q ~ ” Statements are limited to “farms every year are forced to send millions of tons of fruit for feed" (Trud, 8 August 1967, p. 2); “as is known, the larger the fruit harvest, the bigger the share fed to cattle" (Plan khoz, no. 8, 1968, p. 59); and “a goodly share of fruit is fed to livestock" (Literalurnaya gazeta, no. I , I973, p. I 0). 271 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.