In modern agriculture, it is customary to often criticize nature, the climate does not allow for high yields of grain and vegetables. For some reason they say that spring is cold or late, and summer is hot and without rain. In short, it turns out to be a one-sided game: the weather has failed again. And how to make sure that the sun does not burn, but warms up warmly, and it rains on time and as much as necessary. For some reason, no one says anything about this, much less does it.
In 1948. When Europe was still recovering its economy from the consequences of a devastating war, in the USSR, on the initiative of Stalin, a resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was issued on October 20, 1948 On the plan of field-protective afforestation, the introduction of grass-field crop rotations, the construction of ponds and reservoirs to ensure high sustainable yields in the steppe and forest-steppe regions of the European part of the USSR”.
In the press, this document was called "Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature."
Map illustrating plans for the establishment of state forest protection belts.
A fifteen-year program for the scientific regulation of nature, which has no analogues in world practice, developed on the basis of the works of outstanding Russian agronomists.
According to the plan for the transformation of nature, a grandiose attack on drought began by planting forest shelter plantations, introducing grass-field crop rotations, and building ponds and reservoirs. The strength of this plan was in a single will, complexity and scale. The plan had no precedents in the world experience in scale.
According to this magnificent plan, 8 large state forest protection belts with a total length of over 5,300 kilometers will be created in 15 years, protective forest plantations with a total area of 5,709 thousand hectares will be created on the fields of collective and state farms, and by 1955 44,228 ponds and reservoirs will be built on collective and state farms … All this, combined with advanced Soviet agricultural technology, will ensure high, stable, weather-independent harvests on an area of over 120 million hectares. The crop harvested from this area will be enough to feed half of the inhabitants of the Earth. The central place in the plan was occupied by field-protective afforestation and irrigation.
The Washington Post newspaper in 1948 quotes United Nations Director General of Food and Agriculture Boyd Orr, who stated:
Promotional video:
Further, the newspaper admits frankly:
Few people know that the preparation for the adoption of this large-scale project was preceded by a 20-year practice in the Astrakhan semi-desert, where literally, out of nowhere, in 1928. a research station of the All-Union Institute of Agroforestry was founded, under the name of the Bogdinsky strong point. In this dying steppe, overcoming great difficulties, scientists and foresters planted the first hectares of young trees with their own hands. It was here that, from hundreds of varieties of trees and shrubs, tree species were selected that satisfy the scientific developments of Dokuchaev and Kostychev, for the natural conditions of Russia.
And the forest has grown! If in the open steppe the heat reaches 53 degrees, then in the shade of trees it is 20% cooler, and soil evaporation is reduced by 20%. Observations in the Buzuluk forestry in the winter of 28-29 years showed that a pine tree with a height of 7.5 meters collected 106 kg of frost and hoarfrost this winter. This means that a small grove is able to “extract” several tens of tons of moisture from precipitation. On the basis of scientific knowledge and experimental work, this grandiose plan was adopted. Vysotsky G. N. was one of the scientists. academician of VASKHNIL, who studied the influence of forests on the hydrological regime. For the first time he calculated the moisture balance under the forest and field, investigated the influence of the forest on the habitat and the reasons for the treelessness of the steppes. And he made a significant contribution to the steppe afforestation.
The structure of protective forest belts.
Collective farmers and forestry workers procured 6,000 tons of seeds of tree and shrub species. The composition of the rocks proposed by Soviet scientists is interesting:
- first row - Canadian poplar, linden;
- second row - ash, Tatar maple;
- third row - oak, yellow acacia;
- fourth row - ash, Norway maple;
- fifth row - Canadian poplar, linden;
- sixth row - ash, Tatar maple;
- seventh row - oak, yellow acacia …
and so on, depending on the width of the strip, from shrubs - raspberries and currants, which will attract birds to combat pests of forest plantations.
8 state lanes to be held:
- on both banks of the river. The Volga from Saratov to Astrakhan - two lanes 100 m wide and 900 km long;
- on the watershed pp. Khopra and Medveditsa, Kalitva and Berezovoy in the direction of Penza - Yekaterinovka - Kamensk (on the Seversky Donets) - three lanes 60 m wide, with a distance between the lanes of 300 m and a length of 600 km;
- on the watershed pp. Ilovli and Volga in the direction Kamyshin - Stalingrad - three lanes 60 m wide, with a distance between the lanes of 300 m and a length of 170 km;
- on the left bank of the river. Volga from Chapayevsk to Vladimirova - four lanes 60 m wide, with a distance between the lanes of 300 m and a length of 580 km;
- from Stalingrad to the south on Stepnoy - Cherkessk - four lanes 60 m wide, with a distance between the lanes of 300 m and a length of 570 km;
- along the banks of the river. The Urals in the direction of Vishnevaya Mountain - Chkalov - Uralsk - Caspian Sea - six lanes (three on the right and three on the left bank) 60 m wide, with a distance between the lanes of 200 m and a length of 1080 km;
- on both banks of the river. Don from Voronezh to Rostov - two lanes 60 m wide and 920 km long;
- on both banks of the river. Seversky Donets from Belgorod to the river. Don - two lanes 30 m wide and 500 km long.
State protective forest belt Penza-Kamensk.
The beginning of the Kamensk-Penza protective forest belt.
To assist collective farms in paying the cost of afforestation work, a resolution was adopted: to oblige the USSR Ministry of Finance to provide collective farms with a long-term loan for a period of 10 years with repayment starting from the fifth year.
The purpose of this plan was to prevent droughts, sand and dust storms by building reservoirs, planting forest shelter plantations and introducing grass crop rotations in the southern regions of the USSR (Volga region, Western Kazakhstan, North Caucasus, Ukraine). In total, it was planned to plant more than 4 million hectares of forests, and to restore the forests destroyed by the last war and careless management.
State strips were supposed to protect the fields from hot southeastern winds - dry winds. In addition to the state forest protection belts, forest belts of local importance were planted along the perimeter of individual fields, along the slopes of ravines, along existing and newly created reservoirs, on the sands (in order to fix them). In addition, more progressive methods of processing fields were introduced: the use of black fallows, plowing and stubble plowing; correct system of application of organic and mineral fertilizers; sowing selected seeds of high-yielding varieties adapted to local conditions.
The plan also provided for the introduction of a grass farming system developed by the outstanding Russian scientists V. V. Dokuchaev, P. A. Kostychev and V. R. Williams. According to this system, part of the arable land in crop rotations was sown with perennial legumes and bluegrass grasses. Grasses served as a fodder base for animal husbandry and a natural means of restoring soil fertility. The plan envisaged not only absolute food self-sufficiency for the Soviet Union, but also an increase in the export of domestic grain and meat products from the second half of the 1960s. The created forest belts and reservoirs were supposed to significantly diversify the flora and fauna of the USSR. Thus, the plan combined the tasks of protecting the environment and obtaining high sustainable yields.
The Agrolesproekt Institute (now the Rosgiproles Institute) was created to work out and implement the plan. According to his projects, four large watersheds of the basins of the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Ural, European South of Russia were covered with forests. The fulfillment of the assigned tasks has become the business of the entire people.
Soviet poster dedicated to the implementation of the state plan for forest planting.
Simultaneously with field protection afforestation, it was necessary to take measures to preserve and improve especially valuable forest areas, including the Shipov forest, Khrenovsky pine forest, Borisoglebsky forest area, Tula zasek, Black forest in the Kherson region, Velikoanadolsky forest, Buzuluk pine forest. The plantations destroyed during the war and the destroyed parks were being restored.
Simultaneously with the installation of a system of field-protective afforestation, a large program was launched to create irrigation systems. They would make it possible to dramatically improve the environment, build a large system of waterways, regulate the flow of many rivers, receive a huge amount of cheap electricity, and use the accumulated water to irrigate fields and gardens.
To solve the problems associated with the implementation of the five-year plan of reclamation work, the V. R. Williams.
Glavlit quickly withdrew the books about the Plan, the Council of Ministers of the USSR - on April 29, 1953, by a special decree ordered to stop work on the creation of forest belts, their planning and growing planting material (TsGAVO Ukraine. - F. 2, op. 8, d. 7743, l. 149 -150)
One of the consequences of the curtailment of this plan and the introduction of extensive methods of increasing arable land was that in 1962-1963. there was an ecological catastrophe associated with soil erosion on virgin lands, and a food crisis broke out in the USSR. In the fall of 1963, bread and flour disappeared from store shelves, and sugar and butter were interrupted.
In 1962, a 30 percent increase in meat prices and a 25 percent increase in butter was announced. In 1963, as a result of a poor harvest and a lack of reserves in the country, the USSR for the first time after the war, having sold 600 tons of gold from reserves, bought about 13 million tons of grain abroad.
As time passed, the emphasis on Stalin's political "mistakes" completely obscured this grandiose program, which is partially being implemented by the United States, China, and Western Europe in the form of green frames being created. They are assigned a significant role in preventing global warming threats.
On aerial photography, the remains of a forest belt near the village. Borisoglebovka Saratov region
In June-July 2010, a terrible drought hit the fields and forests of the European part of Russia. For high-ranking officials, it fell like snow on the head. This was unexpected for the Russian government. As if earlier, in previous years, many signs did not show that the threat of drought is very serious, and it is necessary to prepare for it in advance. In 2009, almost the same heat as now covered part of the Volga region (Tataria), the South Urals (Bashkiria, Orenburg region). The sun mercilessly burned out all the crops.
Current state:
During the years of perestroika, since 1985, work on the expansion and modernization of the irrigation and forest plantations created in the USSR was stopped, and the system itself began to collapse and become out of order. As a result, water supply to agriculture began to decline and since 2004 has fluctuated around 8 cubic meters. km - 3.4 times less than in 1984. In the 1980s, forests were planted in the forest belts in the amount of 30 thousand hectares per year, after 1995 it fluctuated at the level of about 2 thousand hectares, and in 2007 amounted to 0.3 thousand hectares. The created forest belts are overgrown with bushes and lose their protective properties. And most importantly, they have become ownerless and are being cut down.
Mikhail B. Voitsekhovsky, General Director of the Rosgiproles Institute:
And now we have what we have. Foodstuffs stuffed with chemical additives and GMOs are imported to Russia, while in the most difficult post-war years in the Soviet Union, the population was fully provided with its ecologically pure foodstuffs.
All this could have been avoided if Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature had been fully implemented.
PS Garden City named after Stalin (project).
And this is how (see photo above) the Soviet city was supposed to look like according to Stalin's plan. When the temporary high-rise buildings will be demolished and each Soviet family will have their own house.
Plant trees, friends! Plant massively, abundantly, and everywhere! Plant yourself and move this idea everywhere and always. Go to the administration, suggest projects to restore natural resources! After all, who if not us ?! Nature is dying … The Earth is sick … Humanity continues to destroy it. And only in our power to change it! And yet … no one thinks about what we will leave to our children?