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). Despite its label, the region devotes more area to spring grains than to winter grains, which comprise only about 40 percent of total grain area in the western FSU. The name derives from the fact that almost all the winter grains produced in FSU are grown west of the Urals.

Sown area of both winter and spring grains has declined since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the relative percentages have remained fairly stable. Winter wheat and spring barley are the predominant grains in the western FSU, each comprising roughly 30 percent of the total grain area. winter grain area fluctuates from year to year, depending in part on fall sowing conditions. Spring barley area depends to some degree on the amount of winter grains sown the previous fall: in years of reduced winter grain planting, farmers typically compensate by planting more spring barley, and in a year of high winter grain area, spring barley area usually drops. This relationship is particularly strong in Ukraine.

Winter wheat, the region's most profitable grain, is grown mainly in the southern regions. Rye is the main winter grain in the north, where winters are more severe and the soils less fertile. Oats, a spring-seeded crop, are also grown largely in the north. Winter barley is grown only in the extreme south, while sunflower and corn-for-grain are grown throughout southern Ukraine, the North Caucasus region, and the lower Volga Valley. A majority of the corn in the FSU--roughly 75 percent in Ukraine, for example--is harvested for silage rather than grain. (View area-distribution maps.)

Farms in the FSU employ a variety of crop-rotation schemes, some including four or more crops, some only two. A six-year crop rotation in the winter grain region will often include two consecutive years of wheat and one season of "clean fallow," during which no crop is sown. A typical crop sequence might be: fallow, winter wheat, winter wheat, sunflowers, spring barley, and corn. Wheat almost always follows fallow. According to farm directors, this enables the wheat crop to benefit from the reduced weed infestation (fields are cultivated several times during the fallow season). Fallow also replenishes soil-moisture reserves. Some crop rotations include several consecutive years of a forage crop. An example of such a rotation would be: fallow, two years of winter wheat, and four years of perennial forage. The perennial forage is usually alfalfa; farmers will get three to four cuttings per year, five if the crop is irrigated. In southern oblasts in Russia and Ukraine, clean fallow is frequently omitted and a crop rotation will likely include sugar beets and/or sunflower, the region's chief industrial crops. A typical seven-year rotation in Krasnodar might be: winter wheat, winter barley, sugar beets, winter wheat, winter barley, sunflowers, and corn.

The winter-crop planting season stretches over nearly three months. The sowing campaign begins in the north in August, and advances southward, concluding in late October in southern Ukraine and the North Caucasus. Spring grain planting usually begins in April and progresses from south to north. The "summer" crops--chiefly corn and sunflowers--are last to be sown, and planting is approaching completion by early May in Ukraine and late May or early June in northern Russia.

The harvest campaign begins in late June in the south. Small grains (wheat, barley, rye, oats, pulses) are largely threshed by August in the south (later in the north), but corn and sunflower harvest continues through October. Over the past ten years, planting and harvest operations have been increasingly hobbled by limited fuel supplies and a fleet of decrepit machinery. In the late 1980's, for example, the Ukrainian winter wheat harvest could be finished in roughly three weeks. Harvest now takes twice as long to complete, and both yield and grain quality suffer as a result of the delays.

During the 1980's, Soviet winter wheat was the focus of the so-called intensive technology movement, which was marked by the use of improved varieties and the increased application of fertilizer and plant-protection chemicals. Winter wheat yields climbed during the late 1980's in response to the enhanced management practices. The intensive-technology program fizzled during the 1990's, however, as farms struggled with cash shortages, a crumbling agricultural infrastructure, and skyrocketing fertilizer prices.

Large-scale enterprises (i.e., former State and collective farms) dominate production of most agricultural commodities in the FSU. In Russia, for example, State farms produce roughly 90 percent of grain and 85 percent of sunflowerseed. The non-State sector, however, has traditionally accounted for the lion's share of potato and vegetable output: roughly 90 percent of potatoes and 80 percent of vegetables are grown on household garden plots.

(View current estimates of area, yield, and production of grains in the FSU.)

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