Crops Other than Grain

Abstract

Grain was by far the most important Soviet crop. In 1913 it occupied 90 per cent of the sown area; and in the later 1920s and early 1930s its share did not fall below 80 per cent. A higher proportion of grain was marketed, and mobilised by the state, than of any other food crop apart from sugar beet and vegetable oil. In 1933, about 40 per cent of grain and sugar beet was carried by rail, compared with only 6.5 per cent of potatoes; the railways carried eight times as much grain as potatoes.