World Grain - May 2017 - 6

FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Russian wheat in
centennial year

hen the Soviet Union collapsed in
1989, no one looking to Russia's
future would have predicted that
wheat exporting would rank as one of the
nation's stellar accomplishments. Yet, less
than three decades later, as Russia prepares
to mark the centenary of its 1917 revolutions, the country is vying with the United
States for leadership in wheat exporting,
repeating what was achieved in 2015-16
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in the ruble, attributed to pressure on the
Russian economy, is credited with making
Russian wheat competitive, the availability
of export surpluses is cited among the positives claimed by the country's leaders in
this anniversary year.
The waning years of the Soviet Union
were remarkable as a period when this nation dominated global wheat markets as a
buyer. Indeed, on several occasions the Soviet Union not only bought wheat in large
quantities but was the largest single purchaser. It was in the early 1970s that worsening
food shortages turned into several years of
Moscow purchasing that brought growth to
global markets.
Following the 1989 collapse of the Soviet
Union, signaled by tearing down the Berlin
wall, the present-day structure of Russia
once more brought food shortfalls, but only
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of agriculture to a market-based economy,
different from strict governmental controls
over land use that often caused inadequate
crops. In the past decade Russia has enjoyed
expanding outturns, making more grain
available for export and creating a competitive position in wheat exporting.
The present favorable status of Russia's
wheat economy starkly contrasts with what
occurred in 1917 when early in the year Czar
Nicholas II, the last of the Romanov rulers,
abdicated in response to widespread unrest.
It was in November that the Communists led
by Vladimir Lenin took over from a weak
provisional government, leading to the 72year reign of Communist dictators who
experienced multiple failures, none more
disastrous than in wheat. The Bolsheviks, as

RQHRIWKHLU¿UVWDFWVSDVVHGDGHFUHHGLUHFWing the peasants to seize all land from the
government, the Orthodox Church as well as
from rich landowners. This takeover became
a bloody revolution, named by some "a carnival of vengeance," that saw peasants grabbing property over which they exercised little or no judgment, in turn leading to drastic
cutbacks in crop production. Arguing among
the peasantry that often prompted police and
military interventions led to strict controls
devastating the agricultural economy. In
1928, the central government dramatically
ended all private ownership of land, in effect creating 243,000 collective farms that
replaced what had been previously owned
by 30 million individual farmers. The central government's willingness to import machinery helped make this land grab appear a
grand success, and production rapidly rose
XQWLOMXVWEHIRUH:RUOG:DU,,7KHIXWXUHUHquired extended use of land for winter wheat
production, which itself came about as the
result of experiments showing new ways of
seeding across land that long had been believed unusable for crops like wheat.
As amazing as it may seem to current
participants in active global markets to have
Russia as the world's leading exporter of
wheat, it might be helpful to realize what
a key role that nation held long before the
United States achieved its position. Prior
to 1850, Russia was not just the leader but
one of the few nations exporting wheat. It
considered all of Europe its exclusive wheat
market. That began to change in 1900 when
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The lack of an internal transportation system
stood as the main barrier to leadership, along
with the inclination of Russian farmers to favor growing rye over wheat.
The current export scene, where sales are
determined by moves between the dollar and
the ruble, introduces this element as nearly
DOOSRZHUIXO:LWKWKHQHZ86DGPLQLVWUDtion so alert to this factor, all who deal with
wheat now must heed these two currencies.
Morton I. Sosland
Editor-in-chief

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WORLD GRAIN (ISSN 0745-8991) Volume 35, issue 5,

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