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 Document 3 of 4                                                  Page   1
 Classification:   UNCLASSIFIED       Status:        [STAT)
 Document Date:     22 Nov 91         Category:      [CAT]
 Report Type:      Daily Report       Report Date:
 Report Number:    FBIS-SOV-91-227    UDC Number:
 Author(s):  Candidate of Economic Sciences L. Vashchukov: "Economic
 Barometer: "Ordinary Table or Table Fit for a King"]
 Headline:  Food Rationing, Supply Situation Viewed
 Source Line:  PM2511153591 Moscow PRAVDA in Russian 22 Nov 91 p 1
 Subslug:   [Article by Candidate of Economic Sciences L. Vashchukov:
 "Economic Barometer: "Ordinary Table or Table Fit for a
 King"]
 FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
 1.  [Article by Candidate of Economic Sciences L. Vashchukov:
 "Economic Barometer: "Ordinary Table or Table Fit for a King " ]
 2.  [Text] Quite recently many of us grew indignant that meat,
 sausage, butter, and vegetables were disappearing from the stores,
 Nov it is bread's turn.  Some cities are introducing rationing on
 sales of bread, reminiscent of a blockade-The--lines-waiting_outs1de_
 the empty stores voice the idea: Hasn't the battle for the throne
 driven concern for our daily bread out of officials' minds?
 3.  Let us look through the eyes of impartial statistics at the food
 supplies with which the country is going into the winter.
 4.  We will use only facts and figures, bearing in mind that they are
 stubborn things.
 5.  The fact that the state granaries supposed to store the grain are
 half-empty is particularly alarming.  Yet the grain fields cannot be
 said to have failed to produce the goods.  Some 160 million tonnes of
 grain-52 million tonnes less than last year-have been harvested, yet
 only 39 million tonnes have been brought to the state granaries, at a
 time when a year ago the granaries had received 66 million tonnes.
 To what are we to attribute the fall in grain procurements?
 Reluctance on the part of kolkhozes and sovkhozes to sell grain on
 the cheap.  They were quick to make out the situation: It is far more
 profitable to barter grain or trade it with stockbrokers, who
 sometimes pay 10 times more per tonne than the state.
 6.  Little feed grain has been procured.  Roughly 25-27 million
 tonnes.  Yet roughly 48 million tonnes is required.  Where is the
 rest to come from?  Some of this will be covered by kolkhozes and
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 sovkhozes, but a considerable proportion will have to be bought
 abroad.  As in previous years, we have been put in a spot by
 mismanagement and tremendous arrears, and grain losses have been
 permitted in many areas.
 7.  Moreover there has been a grim "war,, for local power that has
 taken the concerns of autonomous formation, kray, and oblast leaders
 far from the unharvested grain fields.  Yet the fields were shivering
 in the merciless winds of an inclement fall.  Some grain fields were
 left unharvested.  Not just tens of hectares, what is more, but 7
 million hectares.
 8.  Many customers today do not even look in the meat stores.  They
 know that they are empty.  Why?  Meat products were in short supply
 before, now the shortage has become catastrophic.  Meat production in
 the public sector has dropped 12 percent. Some 17.3-17.5 million
 tonnes-roughly 1.5 million tonnes less than in 1990- will be
 procured.  Naturally, state procurements will also fall, which will
 "reduce" the already meager state resources.
 9.  For those who are already living beyond the poverty line now,
 before the so-called price liberalization, the most affordable
 product is milk.  But often it is not on sale.  When it does appear,
 the lines outside the stores stretch for 100 meters.  The reason is
 the same as for meat: Milk production has dropped, and by the end of
 the year roughly 8 million tonnes less than last year will have been
 produced.
 10.  Many people will have to give up their omelet and fried eggs.
 The price of eggs has risen drastically and production has declined.
 Roughly 3 million fever eggs will be procured.  It looks as though we
 have quite simply resolved the eternal philosophical conundrum of
 which came first-the chicken or the egg.  You will not see either in
 the stores.  They appear far less often than unidentified flying
 objects in our skies.
 11.  Nov a word about potatoes.  For a long time they were known as
 the second bread. Rightly so, since they were often a substitute for
 real bread.  What will happen now that potatoes are becoming a
 delicacy for some people?  Some 60 million tonnes have been
 harvested, but only 6.3 million tonnes procured.  The population has
 quite a lot of potatoes which they are keeping until the spring and
 will then put on the market, where the prices have now soared
 rapidly.  Quite recently during the winter, in January, the people of
 Moscow, Leningrad, Tbilisi, Yerevan, and other cities would pay 1.5-2
 rubles [R] per kilogram of potatoes; now they shell out R4-5 each and
 in some places R10.  Even renowned pole vaulter Sergey Bubka probably
 could not have withstood such a rapid rise in altitude.  In order not
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 to overstrain himself, he gradually increased his records skillfully,
 one or two centimeters at a time.  There are no laws for our new
 economic vaulters: They make up all the prices, raising them higher
 and higher.
 12.  Many people comment: The emptier the stores, the fuller the
 market.  You cannot help wondering: Is output destined for the state
 making its way there in a roundabout way? That is most likely the
 case. But market prices....  The customer looks at them and clutches
 his chest.  Who can afford meat at R80 per kilogram, butter at R50,
 and eggs at R30 a dozen?  Apart from our home-grown millionaires.
 But what about the rest, whose monthly earnings are only enough for
 around 10 days?
 13.  There was an old saying: "If there's bread on the table, the
 table is fit for a king." Are our state's leaders trying to deny
 this saying and prove to the country's inhabitants that a table can
 be fit for a king even without bread?

