Foreign News: Enterprisers’ Mite

In principle, all the food that Russians eat comes, or should come, from either collective or state-owned farms. But in stubborn practice, an astonishingly high proportion of the Russian diet, especially on its tastier side, is still supplied by private farming. Last week a new Soviet handbook provided statistics:

¶In 1959, city and village dwellers tending backyard gardens, and collective or state farm workers cultivating private gardens limited to one acre, turned out 46% of all the meat, 49% of all the green vegetables, 49% of all the milk, 65% of all the potatoes, and 80% of all the eggs consumed in Russia. The excess above home consumption is sold in the network of officially tolerated produce markets to which Russian housewives turn when goods are unobtainable in state stores.

¶The official Russian policy is that in due time, as the food supplies in state stores become more plentiful and cheaper, private gardening and the keeping of cows and chickens, etc.. will wither away. There is as yet no evidence this is happening. Despite an official campaign to compel private farmers to sell all livestock to the state, a third of the beef cattle, half of the milkers, and four-fifths of the goats are still peasant-owned.