Agriculture in The Russian Empire - Geography and Crops

Geography and Crops

The black-earth belt (or chernozem) stretched in a broad band north-east from the Romanian border to include the Ukraine, Central Agricultural Region, Middle Volga, south-west Urals and south-western Siberia. This expanse, together with the alluvial zone of the Kuban in the North Caucasus, constituted the fertile `grain-surplus' steppe areas of cereal production. In the non-black earth grain-deficit areas, with their poor soils, the peasants turned to cottage industry (and increasingly factory industry), as well as livestock breeding and the cultivation of vegetables and industrial crops, to make up their livelihoods. They relied on `imports' from the grain-surplus regions to make up the deficiency of cereals.

Rye and oats were the traditional grains. Before the Emancipation of the serfs in 1861 wheat was mainly grown on the demesnes of the landlords of the grain-surplus areas, and mainly for export abroad. But during the 20th century wheat progressively replaced rye as the principal grain crop.

Row and industrial crops were more remunerative than grain, or at worst provided their cultivators with extra income or consumables (hence they were called `cash crops'). Their cultivation spread steadily during the late 19th and earlier 20th centuries, and they were increasingly grown as part of improved crop-rotations (see below). Flax and potatoes were grown in the west, north-west, Central Industrial Region and the Urals; sugar-beet in the northern Ukraine and Central Agricultural region; sunflower in south-eastern Russia and the southern Ukraine; cotton in central Asia and Transcaucasia. By 1917 most vegetables and industrial crops were grown by the peasants. By this time sugar-beet was the only culture to be grown mainly on large estates (and this too largely fell into peasant hands as a result of the Revolution). These cultures require much more work than grain (hence called `intensive cultures'). Before the mechanization of agriculture potatoes needed 64 man-days of labour a year per desyatin (1 desyatin is about 1.1 hectare), flax or cotton up to 110 man-days, sugar-beet as much as 180. This compared with only 30 and 23 man-days a year for winter and spring grain respectively.