By transforming the land into arable pasture, he planned to dramatically increase grain production - and deal with the food deficit in the USSR. On Aug. Moscow, USSR. Members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union organize a meeting to participate in the Virgin Lands Campaign designed to boost crops yields. Overall 1. Demobilzed Soviet soldiers leaving to reclaim virgin lands are seen off by their relatives and friends.
Leonid Brezhnev, who replaced Khrushchev as the leader of the USSR in , had previously been appointed the first secretary of the Kazakhstan Communist Party in Indeed, that year the output was extremely high. More than million tons of grain was grown, the largest yearly production the Soviet Union witnessed. Half of it was produced in the Virgin Lands. However, after this production fell steadily. Propaganda trumpeted the achievements of the settlers on the Virgin Lands.
But its results were mixed: 40 million hectares of new land were brought into production between and , and grain output rose as a result, enough to end food shortages in the short term; but harvest yields were variable, and steadily declined from , largely because there was not enough fertilizer to compensate for the poor soil. As the Kazakhs had warned, their lands were not just virgin but infertile. The campaign bore the stamp of Nikita Khrushchev and his efforts to rekindle popular identification with and participation in state economic initiatives.
As such, it led to strains within the party leadership, particularly after the disappointing harvest. Over half of the million tons of grain produced came from the new regions. Results thereafter never quite reached the level of By the early s, reliance on single-crop cultivation had taken its toll on the fertility of the soil, and failure to adopt anti-erosion measures led to millions of tons of soil simply blowing away.
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