229 



egory again, and the cost to the United States taxpayer will be 

 much higher. 



Mr. Lewis. Dr. Raup, you stated that you've been to the Soviet 

 Union five times since 1958 to 1991. From your experience with the 

 Russian people at that time, do you feel that their economy is in 

 serious jeopardy today with the upheaval of the so-called changes 

 in their current Government and the threat of an overhaul again 

 of their current Government system? 



Mr. Raup. Well, it certainly is under threat, yes. That needs 

 some elaboration. They have had a total breakdown in the supply 

 of production inputs. The old system isn't working. The old system 

 had its defects, but it did get some product to the producer. The 

 supply of production inputs now is haphazard. The kind of barter 

 trading that Ms. Brookins just explained with regard to the final 

 product also exists for inputs in agriculture. That's the way you get 

 your fertilizer. That's the way you get your seed. 



This system needs total overhaul, and until some more realistic 

 prices can be used to move the product and to pay for the spare 

 parts that currently are not available, there is going to be a grad- 

 ual deterioration, and I think it's going to happen very rapidly. 

 They have had some surprising good results in the last few years. 

 For the last 3 years, the average jdeld of wheat in Russia is the 

 highest in history in two of those 3 years, due, of course, to favor- 

 able weather. But it must also be due to the fact that they're doing 

 something right. 



I have considerable confidence in their ability to continue to raise 

 these yields, which they've been doing steadily now for the last 15 

 years. But the supply of production inputs will quickly become a 

 bottleneck, especially in terms of replacement of machinery and 

 equipment, which can eat up your capital. You can live off of your 

 machinery capital in farming for about 5 to 7 years, and then it's 

 gone, as we found out in the cycles that have characterized the 

 farm machinery industry in the tJnited States since the farm crisis 

 in the early 1980's. 



Mr. Lewis. In France the farmers have a tremendous influence 

 on their Government. Do you feel that the agricultural commu- 

 nities in the various Russian states have a similar type of influence 

 on their governments or could have or may never have? 



Mr. Raup. Well, the political systems are different, but it's rough- 

 ly true to say that the overrepresentation of rural areas that char- 

 acterizes so much of the Western European Community and also 

 the United States is also visible in the former Soviet Union, and 

 some of the people that are leading the noisy demonstrations in the 

 present Parliament come from these rural communities. That's the 

 background of the opposition that is now being voiced and given 

 such publicity in the last 2 weeks. 



The rural areas are not organized in the sense that the French 

 farmers are organized, and there is not the sentimental attachment 

 to the Russian peasant that I believe exists in France. I've spent 

 quite a bit of time in France and also in Russia. Many Frenchmen 

 believe that the heart and soul of France is in the countryside. 

 That belief is not quite so strongly apparent in the former Soviet 

 Union. So I don't think they're going to have the kind of nostalgic 

 support base in the cities for support of the rural countryside that 



