Il’inykh V.A. The star and death of Siberian grassland farming // Russian Peasant Studies. 2016. V.1. №1. P. 93-121

DOI: 10.22394/2500-1809-2016-1-1-93-121

Annotation

The article considers the attempts to introduce the grassland farming system in Siberia in the context of the Soviet agricultural policy and the ideological and theoretical struggle in the agronomy. In the early xx century in Siberia, there was a threat of the transition from the fallow farming to the three-field system, which could lead to a crisis in the agriculture. By the mid-i920s, the leading specialists of the land authorities and government leaders of the region believed that the crisis could be prevented only by introducing the grassland farming system. At the beginning of the 1930s, this system was given up for it contradicted the task of solving the grain problem. The oblivion of agro-technological bases under the collectivization led to the decrease in soil fertility, thus, in 1937 the grassland farming was introduced in most regions of the country. Its implementation was interrupted by World War 11 and continued in the late 1940s. After the start of the virgin lands development campaign, the grassland farming was declared ineffective and rejected. After the campaign ended, the grassland farming system was not revived—the bid was made for more intensive technologies and chemicals.

Keywords

agricultural policy, farming systems, grassland farming, agricultural engineering, collective-state farms system, Siberia

About the author

Vladimir A. Il’inykh, D. Sc (History), Head of the Department of Agrarian History of the Institute of History of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences. 8 Akademika Nikolaeva Str., Novosibirsk, 630090.
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