Crop Production in the Winter Grain Region of the Former Soviet Union (FSU)

The winter grain region is generally described as the western portion of the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and European Russia (the territory of Russia west of the Ural mountains). Almost all of the winter wheat and rye produced in FSU is grown in this region. Many spring seeded crops are also grown, however, including barley, oats, corn, sunflowers, sugar beets, and a variety of forage crops.

• Current estimates of area, yield, and production of crops in the FSU.

• General overview of crop-production practices in the western FSU, including planting and harvest dates, cropping patterns, crop rotations, and other information.

• Crop-area maps showing oblast-level area distribution of the major crops in the FSU winter grain region.

• Crop calendars for regions of the prime winter wheat zone, showing approximate dates of the various crop stages.

• Regional and oblast boundary maps identifying the oblasts and other first-order administrative units in the FSU republics.

• Land-use tables of approximate sown area of major crops in the major cropping regions of the western FSU.

• Map showing percent of total land area under cultivation. (Note that the data on which this map was based extended to only 56 degrees north latitude, which eliminated the northern fringe of the crop-production region, most notably Latvia and Estonia, and the northern portions of Russia's Central and Volga-Vyatka regions.)

For more information, contact Mark Lindeman with the Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division on (202) 690-0143.