Nikita Khrushchev and corn fever. What is "Kukutsapol"? It’s not for nothing that we value corn so highly: corn is meat, lard, butter, milk!
Crimea. 1955 Komsomolsk - ten-day youth harvesting corn From the personal archive of Girgidov Gennady
https://ok.ru/profile/570979729017/pphotos/863616742521
*Khrushchev and corn are twin brothers
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev ruled the USSR from 1953 to 1964. He became famous for many extraordinary actions. However, it was his corn epic that caused the greatest resonance. 
Large areas in Crimea are occupied by the “queen of fields” - corn, which annually produces rich harvests
http://old-chest.ru/book/fotoalbom-krym/
He had the best intentions: corn was a unique plant that was supposed to quickly help cope with hunger among both people and animals. However, it was not taken into account that this plant is heat-loving, and therefore the diligence of many people was not crowned with success. The idea of \u200b\u200bgrowing corn from Kazakhstan to Taimyr failed, remaining in the memory of descendants with the phrase “Corn is the queen of the fields” and the strange name Kukutsapol, formed from the first syllables of the famous phrase, which some particularly zealous workers managed to name their sons.
http://foodnews-press.ru/zdorovoe-pitanie/14-healt...0-interesnih-faktov-o-kukuruze
*Between 1954 and 1968, Trudolyubovka was renamed Kukuruznoe. Kukuruznoye (until 1962 Trudolyubovka, until 1948 Taymaz) - a village in the Nizhnegorsky district of Crimea
*The corn harvest in Crimea in 2016 amounted to 5 thousand tons
*Corn must be cooked without salt, otherwise it will become very tough. This is why you buy a boiled ear of corn and then salt it. Old corn needs to be cooked for at least 2 hours, and young corn - only 15 minutes.
*The first acquaintance with corn of the peoples of Russia occurred during Russian-Turkish war 1768-1774, when Russia captured Crimea. At first, corn in Russia was called Turkish wheat. As a result of the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812. According to the Bucharest Peace Treaty, Bessarabia was returned to Russia, where corn was cultivated everywhere. From Bessarabia, corn spread to Ukraine. http://artemenko.com.ua/hit11/
Until the second half of the 1950s, corn in the structure of grain crops in the USSR barely reached 15%, and, for example, in North America it was more than 35%, in Australia and South America- over 30%. This structure was dictated by farming traditions and geographical conditions.
In 1956, the 1st Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee Nikita Khrushchev put forward the slogan: “Catch up and overtake America!” It was about competition in the production of meat and dairy products. Instead of the grass-field crop rotation system, traditional for almost the entire USSR (except Central Asia) at the meeting it was recommended to move to rapid, widespread and widespread planting of corn.
In 1957-1959, the area under corn was increased by about a third - due to the sowing of industrial crops and forage grasses. At that time, this undertaking covered only North Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova.
While visiting the United States in September 1959, Khrushchev visited the fields of the famous farmer Rockwell Garst in Iowa. He grew hybrid corn, which gave a very high yield. Khrushchev called for taking advantage of the US “corn” experience.
Since 1959, corn crops began to expand rapidly (in 1956, 18 million hectares were allocated for them, in 1962 - 37 million hectares), displacing traditional grain crops and forage grasses. Corn was sown even in the northern regions, right up to Vologda, although this crop is heat-loving and produces practically no grain north of Moscow. At the same time, hybrid varieties of corn were bought in the USA and Canada, which were successfully introduced in the North Caucasus, Ukraine, Moldova and, giving high yields - half more than traditional Soviet varieties - dramatically improved the feed supply for livestock farming, significantly increasing its productivity in these regions already in 1958-1959.
For some time, the “queen of the fields” took over the country: corn flakes, corn sticks, corn bread, corn sausage. Films about corn, poems and songs appeared.
In 1960, due to rising prices, purchases of American and Canadian seeds ceased; it was decided to introduce Soviet varieties improved using North American technology everywhere.
By 1964, at least 60% of the corn crops produced in 1960-1962 had died, and the yield of the “remaining” corn fields was half that of 1946-1955.
After Leonid Brezhnev came to power, corn was almost completely forced out of the country's arable lands - even in those areas where it had always been successfully grown. As a result, by the early 1970s, the area under corn fell to its lowest level in the 20th century. In the 1970s in Russia, corn was grown virtually only in the North Caucasus. However high yield grain crop continued to be a strong argument in favor of its cultivation, and therefore in the 1980-1990s the area of cultivation of this cereal began to expand. Currently, corn for grain is grown in the Black Earth zone, the Middle Volga region, in Southern Urals, as well as some areas Far East(Amur region, Prikhankai lowland).
The capital's mayor even developed special technology, according to which corn is grown in the Serpukhov district of the Moscow region.
The essence of the technology proposed by Yuri Luzhkov is that corn is not sown directly into the ground, but first its grain is placed in so-called biocontainers, or macrocapsules, which consist of biocompost, peat and other nutrients. In such a protective shell, grain is not afraid of frost, which our climate is rich in, and germinates faster.
https://ria.ru/history_spravki/20100825/268787063.html 
Nikita Khrushchev is presented with a wreath of corn at one of the collective farms in Ukraine, 1963
* “I am a corn grower,” he liked to joke, communicating with party members and remembering how in 1949, when he was the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR, he managed to save the one entrusted to him Soviet republic from hunger thanks to corn.
*He developed this program for several years, but it began to take real shape in January 1954, when Khrushchev wrote a corresponding note for the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee. In it he indicated that " specific gravity corn crops in the USSR account for 3.6 percent of all grain crops, and in the USA - 36 percent. This largely explains the high yield of all grain crops in the United States (17.3 centners per hectare), since the yield of corn in the United States per hectare is more than twice the yield of wheat and oats.”
*Officially, corn became the second bread in the USSR in September 1956. Then an all-Union seminar on corn took place in Moscow. It was there that Khrushchev said catchphrase“Corn, comrades, is a tank in the hands of soldiers, I mean collective farmers; “This is a tank that makes it possible to overcome barriers, to overcome obstacles on the way to creating an abundance of products for our people,” said Khrushchev, promising to plant it from Kazakhstan to Taimyr.
*Agitprop has completely switched to corn. In the “List of texts of caps, headings of posters”, recommended by the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee to the editors of regional newspapers in 1954, there was a quatrain: “In all regions and territories of the Union / Corn can produce a harvest. / Introduce this culture everywhere: / In every region and in every region.”
*In 1961, a color film called “Magic Corn” was made; even before that, the Soviet glass industry launched the production of Christmas tree decorations in the form of corn cobs.
*In 2005, in one of the farms in the Gulkevichevsky district Krasnodar region erected a monument to Khrushchev. On a column of white marble, crowned with a bust of the disgraced politician, the inscription: “To the great ascetic of corn Nikita Khrushchev.” This is the only monument in his honor in Russia - besides the tombstone at the Novodevichy cemetery.
About the most famous undertaking of N.S. Khrushchev
In 1957, the cartoon “Wonderful Woman” was released on movie screens. It was shown often: in fact, it was an advertising and music video that promoted the distribution and usefulness of corn. The choir of weeds that threatened the “queen of the fields” sang: “We will eat the oats, we will destroy the wheat, we will destroy the corn, and dust will remain in the fields!” Ha ha! But the cartoon had a happy ending: people saved corn, and she thanked them: “I am soap, and loaf, and triple cologne, I am a grain crop, and I am also a consumer crop.”
The development of virgin lands did not lead to an abundance of grains, much less livestock products. Meanwhile, the problem with feed for the livestock industries only worsened.
Until the second half of the 1950s, corn in the structure of grain crops in the USSR barely reached 15 percent, and, for example, in North America it was more than 35 percent, in Australia and South America - over 30 percent. This structure was dictated by farming traditions and geographical conditions.
But the 1st Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, was possessed by an almost manic idea. At the Moscow meeting of collective farm representatives in 1956, Khrushchev put forward the well-known slogan: “Catch up and overtake America!”
It was about competition in the production of meat and dairy products. Instead of the grass-field crop rotation system, traditional for almost the entire USSR (except for Central Asia), the meeting recommended moving to rapid, widespread and widespread planting of corn. Academician T.D. Lysenko opposed this, but his arguments were called in the press “dogmatism, disbelief in the capabilities of the Soviet Agriculture and a relapse of thinking during the period of Stalin’s personality cult.” And already in 1957-1959, the area under corn was increased by about a third - due to the sowing of industrial crops and forage grasses. True, at that time this undertaking covered only the North Caucasus, Ukraine and Moldova. Before " northern seas“The process has not yet been completed.
But, while on a visit to the United States in September 1959, Khrushchev visited the fields of the famous farmer Rockwell Garst in Iowa. He grew hybrid corn, which gave a very high yield. Khrushchev was, one might say, literally blinded: he convened a meeting at the USSR Embassy in Washington, where he criticized our diplomats and analysts for inattention to the “corn” experience of the United States and ordered to literally flood his native Ministry of Agriculture with American materials on corn cultivation. According to eyewitnesses, Khrushchev at the embassy, and even upon his arrival in the USSR, literally tore and tore. He called for “decisively changing local leaders, who themselves have withered and are drying corn. Well, what did we do in agriculture after Stalin? Yes, virgin soil, but that’s not enough. Why are we worse than Americans? Thanks to corn, they have no problems with livestock and grain farming. Why are our fields or our climate worse? And they also write to me that, they say, it is not possible to sow corn everywhere, we need its adapted varieties, they ask us to maintain grass crop rotations. Isn’t this dogmatism and sabotage?”
And since 1959, the “queen of the fields” began to be promoted up to the Arkhangelsk region and Karelia inclusive. This was almost an outrage - not so much against the long-standing experience and traditions of agriculture in the country, but against common sense. True, at the same time, hybrid varieties of corn were bought in the USA and Canada, which were successfully introduced in the North Caucasus and Ukraine with Moldova and, giving high yields - half more than traditional Soviet varieties - sharply improved the feed supply for livestock farming, significantly increasing its productivity in these regions already in 1958-1959. But the USA and Canada began to increase prices for seeds in 1959, and Khrushchev’s attempts to “agree” on their cost during his visit to the USA were unsuccessful. Therefore, Soviet purchases have come to naught since 1960. However, we did not want to “retreat” and it was decided to introduce Soviet varieties, improved using North American technology, everywhere - and near the White Sea...
What did it look like?
For example, in the Mezensky district of the Arkhangelsk region, near the building of the district committee of the CPSU, a “patch” of land was allocated for visual propaganda, on which stunted green shoots of corn flaunted, designed to prove the suitability of the entire Soviet territory for growing corn.
From the memoirs of Valentin Kozlov, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Honored Worker of Agriculture of the Russian Federation: “In the late fifties - early sixties, I worked as a chief mechanic on the collective farm named after Stalin in the village of Konevo, Plesetsk district, Arkhangelsk region. The deputy chairman of the regional executive committee, Sedrichev, comes to us and explains the next task: to urgently start growing corn. But we had no idea about her. But they got down to business with enthusiasm. At first, corn seeds were planted using the square-cluster method with the help of schoolchildren. But nothing good came of it: the birds pecked out almost all the seeds, and it was necessary, following the order of the first secretary of the district committee, to plow in the planted areas. So as not to make a fool of yourself in front of visiting authorities from the region. Then I had the opportunity to work in the Kargopol interdistrict collective farm association. But I didn’t see any decent ears of grain. Although in some farms of Kotlas, Krasnoborsk and other southern districts of the region it was initially possible to obtain good harvests green mass of corn for silage. The situation was aggravated by the fact that corn seeds from Canada and the USA were imported to the Arkhangelsk port and other ports, harvested two to three years ago. Therefore, they were not suitable for our northern land. And to ensure germination, literally every grain had to be dipped into paraffin liquid. But this and the new technology with fertilizers did not help. The main obstacle remained our climate, which was unsuitable for heat-loving corn and cold for the ripening of such crops.”
In a word, instead of an abundance of milk and meat in the USSR, there was a shortage of them everywhere, except in Moscow, Leningrad and nomenklatura food distributors. There was also a shortage of most cereals, because their crops were replaced by corn. And about the consequences for large livestock cattle and there is no need to talk about pigs...
By 1964, at least 60 percent of the corn crops produced in 1960-1962 had died, and the yield of the “remaining” corn fields was half that of 1946-1955. And already in 1962, regular and growing imports began, including from North America grain, including corn, and raw meat. But the scientists who openly opposed the all-Union corn venture were called “charlatans” and “armchair bureaucrats” by Khrushchev and his associates - there were scientists among them.
At first, Khrushchev was reported about negative trends in the virgin lands and corn companies, but due to his harsh reaction, local leaders then decided not only not to report this, but also to report what they “himself” wanted to see.
And since 1960, numerous reports have been sent to the Kremlin about record harvests corn, about unprecedentedly large gains in livestock farming, about one hundred percent supply of farms with feed. As well as the fact that Soviet varieties of corn are much better than North American ones. At the 21st Congress of the CPSU, the pioneers made a poetic greeting: “Raising calves is up to us, we work as a whole class. We also want to catch up with America in terms of meat!”
And in the 1970s, dissertations were already “openly” defended on the long-term benefits of grain imports - primarily from the USA...
Washington's favorable reaction to such "cooperation" was never late. But Soviet statistics increasingly hid the real situation and trends in the economy, especially in agriculture. This information most often appeared under the heading “For official use.”
In order to urgently save the situation, prices for livestock products, bread and cereal products began to increase in 1961. Collective farms, especially livestock farms, were transferred to state farms or transformed into state farms, and cattle and pigs began to be “removed” from the farmsteads of collective farmers and private farms of city residents at symbolic prices. In addition, taxes were introduced on poultry in collective farms and private farms, which were abolished only in 1965. But these measures did not help either. By the way, Stalin in his last book “ Economic problems socialism in the USSR”, published in 1952, called such ideas “Khlestakovism” and “gibberish of crazy Marxists”...
Naturally, an orgy began with “false” reporting, the assignment of titles, other awards, prizes, which were also received by many of Khrushchev’s colleagues.
But at the October plenum of the CPSU Central Committee in 1964, they complained about Khrushchev’s “voluntarism” on issues of virgin lands and corn planting, his ignorance of the real situation in agriculture, and his intolerance to criticism. And the culprit was nearby and, with tears in his eyes, was silent...
Here is data from the book “History and Modernity of the Kursk Territory”: “Many “innovations” in agriculture after 1953 began with N.S. Khrushchev’s native Kalinovka. The collapse of personal subsidiary plots, which began in the late 1950s throughout the country, was a blind copying of the experience of the Kalinovites. It started with Khrushchev inviting them to give up cattle and pigs on their personal farmsteads. At that time, it was urgently necessary to make up for the massive slaughter of collective and state farm livestock due to the consequences of virgin lands and the all-Union “corn farming.”
As evidenced by the Deputy Director of the Kursk Research Institute of Agro-Industrial Production, Doctor of Economics D. Vanin, the lack of adequate premises for keeping a large number of animals, the poor state of the food supply, and the unfavorable financial conditions for peasants for the delivery of livestock and pigs to the state led to the beginning of the mass slaughter of animals and personal farmsteads. And also poultry, when taxes on its private maintenance were introduced (these taxes existed in 1960-1964, and they were maximum in the RSFSR - A.Ch.). All this led to a crisis in the livestock industry of the entire country, from which it did not fully recover until the collapse of the USSR.”
By the way, in the magazines “Health” and “Science and Life” in 1962-1964, articles were published about the dangers of frequent consumption of meat, game, eggs, cereals, and vegetables. Because their production decreased sharply due to the truly all-Union planting of corn. Naturally, due to the sowing of historically traditional crops.
The people were fed for a long time with promises of happiness - after the country’s virgin lands were developed and when there was a lot of corn...
Special for the Centenary
According to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, the production of corn was supposed to solve two problems of the Soviet agricultural industry at once - the shortage of grain and the lack of feed for livestock. In 1954, on his initiative, experiments began in agriculture to dramatically expand the zoning of corn, including in the northern farming zone. Contrary to popular myth, the introduction of corn began even before Khrushchev’s visit to the United States.In his program for the introduction of corn, Khrushchev indicated that “the share of corn crops in the USSR is 3.6 percent of all grains, and in the USA - 36 percent. This largely explains the high yield of all grain crops in the United States (17.3 centners per hectare), since the yield of corn in the United States per hectare is more than twice the yield of wheat and oats.”
If in 1954 corn crops in the USSR amounted to 3.5 million hectares, then by 1960 their area should have grown to 28 million, that is, approximately equal to the area of developed virgin land.
A generally reasonable decision - of the grain feeds for livestock, the most valuable in terms of feed value is corn grain (the total nutritional value of 1 kg of dry corn grain is 1.31 feed units), turned out to be “excesses on the ground”, when corn was planted everywhere without paying attention to attention neither to the climate (they also sown in the northern regions), nor to the presence or absence of agricultural infrastructure. The landings are already under a different slogan - “Komsomol members! Act as instigators of two corn harvests a year!” - the Komsomol detachments were abandoned. Corn was called “Komsomol culture,” recalled Kostroma local historian Zinaida Nikolaeva: “Elderly collective farmers could not understand why such labor-intensive and capricious corn was needed when there were perennial grasses that had proven themselves for centuries. But at schools, student teams were created: in biology lessons, children studied the agricultural technology of corn, the features of its cultivation, and in the spring and summer they did practical training on educational plots.”
Virgin lands, lands for fodder crops, low-yielding grain crops, fallow fields, and pastures were plowed up for the “miracle”. The area of land allocated for corn eventually equaled and even exceeded the area put into agricultural use as a result of the development of virgin lands. In order not to receive criticism from above, they sought to allocate the best fields for it, which had previously been allocated for traditional grain crops - wheat and rye.
As a result corn campaign in the USSR there was a shortage of not only meat and milk, but also basic bread. Already in the fall of 1962, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers issued a decree “On establishing order in the expenditure of grain resources.” They were limited in the sale of bread - no more than 2.5 kg per person. Moreover, white bread practically disappeared from the shelves, and corn and pea flour were mixed into black bread.
Miraculous. A musical cartoon promoting the virtues of corn. Soyuzmultfilm, 1957
The cartoon received the following prizes:
XI IFF in Edinburgh, 1957 - Diploma;
I VKF, Moscow 1958 - First prize
Corn growers who achieved success were awarded badges.
Posters of the time promoting corn.
A large plant of the cereal family - corn - has been known in Russia since the 17th century; it has been studied quite well for two hundred years, during the reign of Russian Emperor Alexander I. “The plant called cokeruse” was defined as useful and very convenient, especially during crop failures, but it cannot grow in the northern zone of Russia, since it requires more summer heat to ripen.
Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, being the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, loved corn so much that in 1956 he organized the All-Union Institute of Corn in Dnepropetrovsk, and becoming the head of state, he tried to instill a love for this culture throughout the country, including the regions of the Far North, Chukotka and the Far East.
Close attention to agriculture was caused by real food shortages; extensive farming required everything large areas under plowing. Instead of switching to intensive farming, increase the yield of existing fields using mineral fertilizers, to adopt the experience of the rest of the world, Khrushchev, who imagined himself to be a major specialist in agriculture, begins the virgin lands epic. And his favorite corn is sown on 36.8 million hectares, instead of 18, replacing the original traditional crops - rye and wheat.
In the Arkhangelsk, Novgorod, Pskov and other northern regions, the corn did not ripen; in the short summer the cob only had time to form, about which the first person of the country was very angry. And when grown in conditions suitable for it, but sown in the same fields for several years in a row, corn no longer produced the expected harvest, because this crop greatly depleted the soil, and there was nothing to fertilize the fields with and no one would allow the land to “rest” . And so it turned out that the corn did not grow, and the wheat was not sown. The craze for peas and other legumes had the same Negative consequences, as experiments with the “queen of the fields”. In 1959, Khrushchev visited the United States, where he was shown the farm of R. Garst in Iowa. Completely fascinated by the corn there, Khrushchev, returning to Moscow, continued the course of corning the entire country. It got to the point that neighboring Romanians began to be taught how to grow corn, which they already knew how to do very well. The Romanians were offended.
They started baking bread from corn flour; people of the older generation still remember the smell of silage and the taste of the damp crumb. They also remember the long lines for food, and how gardens were cut down on peasant farmsteads, they remember the tax on cows, about the mandatory surrender of the skin from a slaughtered pig, they remember a lot of things. Still preserved in history male name Kukutsapol (CORN QUEEN OF THE FIELDS). Complete insanity.
No one still knows how it happened that a poorly educated, ignorant, impulsive, impatient, self-confident, vain person, encouraged by the same comrades-in-arms, ended up in power and brought a once powerful agricultural country to complete bankruptcy. According to W. Churchill’s definition, in order to leave Russia without bread, one must be very talented person. For the first time, the USSR begins to purchase grain in huge quantities from the USA, Canada, and Australia, paying with its gold reserves. Even during a terrible war there was a powerful supply of grain, and in peacetime all the reserves went to “feed” friendly democratic governments; grain was donated by the wagonload at a time when the people were starving. What nicknames people awarded Khrushchev, not every intellectual will dare to repeat.
With the coming to power of dear Leonid Ilyich, they stopped growing corn even where it produced excellent harvests. Apparently they ate their fill.
Everyone, of course, knows about Khrushchev’s famous program, under which the USSR was supposed to “catch up and overtake” the United States in terms of agricultural production, in particular corn, as well as food and other goods. But like many other “races” with the United States, the Soviet Union lost this competition.
There were more than enough reasons for this: the skill of the leader himself, who became famous for using his boots as a tool foreign policy, accept " right decisions", and the "advanced efficiency" of the agricultural complex of the USSR, as well as many others typical of Soviet Union features of a planned economy. The result of the reform is low corn yields, as well as a significant reduction in the yield of traditional crops.
Let's look at the basic principles of Khrushchev's corn program, and also give a few interesting examples of how Nikita Sergeevich could use corn today, having access to modern technologies.
Principle No. 1 “The house is bigger and the woman is beautiful”
In January 1954, Khrushchev wrote a note to the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee, in which he noted that in the USSR the share of corn crops was only 3.6%, while in the USA it was 36%. Such historical injustice had to be resolved immediately, and it had to be done the way everything was solved in the USSR - “quickly and effectively.” Therefore, already in September 1956, Khrushchev made a speech in which he ordered Soviet farmers to plant corn from “Kazakhstan to Taimyr.” Well, to “catch up and overtake the USA,” of course.
It may seem incredible, but corn can be found in TV remote controls and electric toothbrushes. The fact is that corn starch is used as a conductor of electricity in the manufacture of batteries.
Principle No. 2. “We want to sow corn, and that’s it, the conversation is over.”
In 1956, the All-Union Corn Research Institute was opened in Dnepropetrovsk on the basis of the Ukrainian Research Institute of Grain Farming, which was supposed to become the “locomotive” of corn reform. Research institution was tasked with developing frost-resistant varieties of corn. However, scientists simply could not keep up with the pace of corn reform. Already in 1962, the area under “miracle” crops (that’s what this crop was called during the period of Khrushchev’s corn race; a cartoon of the same name was even filmed in 1957) increased to almost 37 million hectares (from 3.5 million hectares in 1954 hectares). As a result, there was a catastrophic shortage of hybrid varieties.
How is corn used today? Corn is also used to treat colds, and we are not talking about folk methods. Corn syrup is used in the production of cough drops. The syrup gives the candies a sweetish taste and, unlike traditional sugar, does not crystallize, which helps give them the correct, “candy” shape.
Principle No. 3 “Let’s give our homeland 50 centners per hectare!”
In pursuit of productivity, all fields were sown with corn, not paying attention to either climatic conditions or soil quality. Not only developed virgin lands were used, but also the best arable lands, which were traditionally allocated for wheat and rye. To fulfill the state plan for corn production, the famous American farmer Roswell Garst was even brought in, who later became an unofficial consultant to Khrushchev’s corn campaign. However, the classic Soviet approach, which assumed the implementation of “orders from above” no matter what methods and at what cost, did not allow achieving the desired 50 centners per hectare. For this there were neither appropriate sowing and growing technologies, nor sufficient quantity qualified specialists who could cope with such a large-scale reorientation of agriculture.
How is corn used today? Corn is used for the production of carpets, as well as in other textile industries including manufacturing special paints. Textile products that use corn derivatives are less toxic to humans and environment than similar products made from petroleum-based synthetic materials.
Principle #4 “No corn, no bread”
Despite active work on breeding suitable varieties and the incredible scale of crops, the USSR was never able to catch up, let alone overtake the United States in terms of production volumes and yields. At the end of the 50s, the average yield of food corn per 1 hectare in the USA was 27-30 centners, while in the USSR it was 13 centners. IN Western Siberia, for example, in the period from 1953 to 1960. corn crops were increased from 2.1 thousand hectares to 1.6 million hectares, while the average yield was only 7.5 c/ha.
How is corn used today? Corn flour and starch are widely used in the production of glue and other adhesives. Even the duct tape on an envelope becomes sticky because it contains corn.
As a result of the corn race in 1963, the USSR was forced to buy wheat abroad for the first time in several decades, and by 1964, more than 60% of corn crops were destroyed. The main reasons for the failure of the corn race were the irrational use of land, the lack of technology and hybrid varieties adapted to the climatic conditions of cold regions. Soon after Khrushchev was removed from power, the corn boom began to decline, and USSR agriculture began to gradually return to the cultivation of traditional crops: wheat, rye and fodder grasses for livestock.
Agricultural reforms are also coming in Ukraine, and we have prepared this article to remind you of past mistakes. We hope that the state’s new agricultural policy will be freed from the “Khrushchev-corn” approach to reforming the industry.