Word: cropped
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...living costs means the U.S. is in for what Data Resources Inc. President Otto Eckstein calls "a new wave of inflation"; he expects it to last for six to twelve months. The experts' main dispute seems to be over the reasons for that wave. Though all agree that crop failures played a role, Brookings Institution Economist Arthur Okun cites such "self-inflicted wounds" as the Soviet grain sales and the coming abrupt decontrol of oil prices at the end of this month. Monetarists argue that the Federal Reserve's moderately easy money policy earlier this year is partly...
...inspire an extra effort down on the Kochenevsky state farm, the Communist Party has created a new title, "Hero of Threshing," which will be awarded for outstanding performance. Riding atop their huge Niva combines, Soviet farmers last week were rushing to harvest the grain crop, and from the Ukraine to Siberia, extra trucks were being pressed into service to speed the wheat, corn, rye and barley to storage areas before fall rains cause spoilage. Despite the frantic efforts, the Soviet harvest is expected to fall at least 25 to 30 million tons short of this year's goal...
...planners fouled up again this year. Under intense pressure from Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev to raise more grain for livestock, they set the total grain harvest goal at an overly optimistic level that would have nearly equaled the record 222 million tons achieved in 1973. Even if the present crop reaches only 180 million tons, it still would be the fourth largest Soviet harvest in history. But having allocated so much acreage for grain to be fed to cattle and poultry, Soviet planners now find that they did not have enough left over to comfortably feed the people...
...frost hits large tracts in Siberia in early September. According to Soviet farm authorities, favorable weather conditions prevail about once every four years. This year there were two damaging developments. A freakishly warm winter failed to provide the essential protective coat of snow for the winter wheat, hurting the crop. Then, just as the spring plantings of corn and wheat were sprouting, a hot June parched the shoots, stunting the yield...
...Soviet Union is making huge new investments in fertilizer plants. Nonetheless, Soviet farmers still lack soil additives. Further, Soviet farm managers are relatively unschooled in such important crop-producing techniques as soil conservation, herbicide use and pest control-a legacy of the decades during which the head of a collective farm was most often not its best manager but its most politically reliable Communist. As a result, a Soviet farmer produces only one-tenth as much grain as his U.S. counterpart. Reports a member of a U.S. Agriculture Department team that studied Soviet farms last month: "The managing staffs...