First of two parts.


In 1991 there was a catastrophically poor grain harvest in the Soviet Union. Only 151 million tons were harvested and state purchases fell to the level of the 1950s.


There was a real danger of famine and it contributed to the August coup and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Western humanitarian aid and food credits took the edge off the crisis, but it was obvious that in 1992 every republic of the former Soviet Union would have to rely first and foremost on its own resources.


By the end of this August it was clear that although the 1992 harvest was poor because of the drought, it was much better than the 1991 harvest. However, state purchases of grain were taking place far more slowly than in 1991. In fact, they were slower than in 1940 when the urban population of the entire Soviet Union was only half the present urban population of Russia.


After the forced collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union in 1930-33 it was the rule that collective farms had to begin selling grain to the state as soon as they started harvesting. Only when the appetites of the government and the towns had been satisfied could collective farms begin to worry about their own needs. By October state procurements of grain had usually been completed throughout the country.


In 1991, however, this tradition turned into a trap for the collective and state farms. Under protest and with difficulty, they sold their harvest to the government at fixed 1991 prices (approximately 300 to 400 rubles per ton of grain). But in January 1992 they were forced to buy everything they needed from the state (seed grain, complex fodder, fertilizer, agricultural machinery, diesel fuel for tractors and combines) at the new, "free" prices, which were 10 to 50 times higher than the old. As a result, all the collective and state farms went bankrupt, accumulating huge debts.


It should have been obviouythat in 1992 the farms would not sell their new harvest for fixed prices but would try to cover their losses. In the old days they would have been forced to submit. In the new conditions of the market, however, it was the state that had to surrender.


In planning the harvest campaign in the spring, the Yeltsin government offered to raise the purchase price of grain tenfold, to 3, 000 to 4, 000 rubles a ton. This would have kept the price of bread at an acceptable level, since most salaries and pensions had risen tenfold. However, the state and collective farms announced that this was lower than the cost of producing grain.


They would not consider selling their grain for less than 15, 000 to 20, 000 rubles a ton. Moreover, they would only sell the minimum amount in autumn. By keeping most of the harvest until the winter and spring they could ensure that the price kept pace with inflation.


In July the government raised its offer to 10, 000 rubles a ton but to no avail. By the middle of August the Russian government had only purchased 5 million tons of grain for its reserves, three times less than by the same date the previous year in which there had been a bad harvest.


The government had no option but to give way. On Aug. 14 the new price for grain, from 12, 000 to 24, 000 rubles per ton depending on region and quality, was announced. Similar scenarios took place in the other Commonwealth states. In Central Asia the purchase price was even higher, up to 25, 000 rubles a ton. Sales of grain to the state increased somewhat, but by mid-September the Russian government had only purchased 16 million tons. This was only a third of the amount it required for the towns and the drought-stricken regions.


Paradoxically, the poor grain harvest and the difficulties of state purchases in 1992 have strengthened the position of the socialist sector of agriculture. The Law on Land Reform of Dec. 27, 1990, and President Boris Yeltsin's special decree on Immediate Measures to Implement Land Reform in the Russian Federation of Dec. 27, 1991, were designed to break up most of the collective and state farms in 1992, distributing the land and machinery to the peasants so that they would create, or so it was hoped, small, more productive family farms on the American or Canadian model.


However, by the beginning of the sowing season in Russia only 111, 943 family farms had been registered, with an overall area of 4, 597, 930 hectares, about 3 percent of all the agricultural land in Russia. None of the 27, 000 Russian collective and state farms had disappeared although several had re-registered under new names.


The results of 1992 did not fulfill the expectations that family farms would be more efficient. Occupying 3 percent of cultivated land, these farms produced only 0. 5 percent of the country's food balance. Only about 3, 000 new farms proved capable of trading their produce and selling grain and meat to the state. Most of the rest are subsistence farmers, with one cow and 5 to 6 pigs, who feed their own families and supply their relatives in the towns. About a third of the farmers could not even sow the fields they had been allotted, having spent the bank credits they had been given without any chance of being able to repay their debts later.


The state proved incapable of giving farmers the financial and technical aid they needed. The average size of credit to Russian farmers from the state was insufficient to purchase even the smallest tractor at 1992 prices. A minimum of 20 million rubles was required to establish a single "optimal" farm of 50 to 100 hectares at the new prices. The government simply did not have that amount of money for land reform.


Next: Land reform and the future.


Zhores Medvedev is a biologist and author who has lived in London since 1973.