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Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6 Sunny, frostless weather prevails in the southern black soil steppes of the Ukraine during a considerable part of the year. This makes it possible to raise bumper crops of cotton, winter wheat, rice, ground nuts, castor beans, grapes, and other valuable plants. The south of the Ukraine is a favorable region for breeding fine-fleeced sheep and other productive cattle. But the fertile soils of these regions do not always properly reward the labors of the collective farmers, of the workers of the machine-and-tractor sta- tions and state farms of the southern districts of the Ukraine. Dry winds and black dust storms frequently devastate the fields and destroy the fruits of the labor of many thousands of people. Suf- fice it to say that in 60 years, at the junc- tion of the nineteenth and twentieth cen- turies, there were 20 drought-stricken years in the southern districts of the Ukraine. In those years, the yields of the principal crop — winter wheat — averaged from 0.09 to 0.3 tons per hectare,* and some crops perished al- together. The yields of grain and industrial crops in the southern Ukraine were often unstable, Drought, occurring every three or four years, frequently assumed the proportions of a calamity and weak- ened the economy in the drought- stricken districts as well as that of the whole republic. At times the State failed to obtain the necessary amount of valu- able food and industrial crops from the vast plantations. Owing to inadequate yields and in- sufficient development of productive livestock farming, the incomes of the collective farms in the southern districts of Kherson, Nikolayev, Zaporozhye, and other regions were much lower than those of farms in the northern districts of the republic. Experience has shown that irrigation is a reliable and effective means of com- bating drought. In the southern Ukraine irrigation creates exceptionally favor- able conditions which make it possible to garner 1.8 to 2 tons of cotton, about 3 to 3.5 tons of wheat per hectare, about 30 tons of potatoes, about 8 to 9 tons of grapes and fruit, and up to 40 to 50 tons of sugar beet per hectare. Both the peasants who suffered from * 1 hectare==2.471 acres. OCTOBER 13, 1950 drought and agricultural specialists have long been nurturing the idea of using the Dnieper's waters for irrigating the southern districts of the Ukraine. As far back as 40 years ago, a plan for irrigat- ing the land in the southern Ukraine was proposed by advanced engineers and hydrotechnical specialists of those days. But under the conditions prevailing in tsarist Russia their dreams could not come true. Only the victory of the Soviet system and the solicitude of the Com- munist Party, the Soviet Government, and Stalin for the uninterrupted pro- gress of socialist agriculture and for the welfare of our people, have made it possible to place the waters of the Dnieper at the service of the people, to use them for extensively transforming nature. The realization of the Stalin plan for irrigating the southern districts of the Ukraine and the northern districts of the Crimea, will call into being vast cotton plantations, splendid orchards and vine- yards, rich fields of winter grain and rice on the tracts where crops have been frequently destroyed by dry winds and black storms. Irrigation will create a solid basis for the development of com- monly-owned productive livestock ; there will be an increase in the herds of cattle, and especially in the flocks of fine- fleeced sheep. A vast tertitory in the great land of Soviets will be trans- formed. The Decision adopted by the Govern- ment of the USSR on the irrigation of the land in the southern districts of the Ukraine and the northern districts of the Crimea opens tremendous prospects be- fore agriculture in these districts; it will strengthen the collective farms organi- zationally and economically and will raise the efficiency of socialist agricul- ture, Agriculture in the southern dis- tricts of the republic will steadily move along the road of rapid progress; there will be a continuous increase in the gross volume of grain and industrial crops and in the productivity of animal hus- bandry. The Dnieper will supply water to 3,- 200,000 hectares of land in the Kher- son, Zaporozhye, Nikolayev, and Dnie- propetrovsk Regions of the Ukrainian SSR and in the northern districts of the Crimea, Three million two hundred thousand hectares of arid tracts will be converted into fertile fields and rich pas- tures. It will be a great victory for the Soviet unan over the spontaneous ele- ments of nature. As is specified in the Decision of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, irrigation of the fields in the southern districts of the Ukraine and the north- ern districts of the Crimea will be ef- fected in two ways: through the me- chanical supply of water by pumping stations to an area of 800,000 hectares and through gravity canals to an area of 700,000 hectares. For the purpose of the mechanical irrigation of the fields with Dnieper water, a power station with a 250,000- kilowatt capacity which will produce about 1,200,000,000 kilowatt-hours of electric power annually in years with an average precipitation, as well as a navigable sluice, a reservoir holding 14,000,000,000 cubic meters} of water, and pumping stations will be built in the neighborhood of Kakhovka. For the purpose of gravity irrigation it is proposed to build the South Ukrain- ian Canal, which will divert from the Dnieper 600 to 650 cubic meterst of water per second and will stretch from Zaporozhye to the River Molochnaya and further down in the direction of Askania-Nova, down to the Sivash, to be continued by the North Crimean Canal, extending from the Sivash to- ward Jankoy, along the steppes of the Crimea and down to Kerch. The South Ukrainian Canal will also be connected by a canal with the Kakh- ovka Reservoir for the gravity irrigation of the adjoining tracts. In the years with low precipitation, water from the Kakh- ovka Reservoir will be directed into the irrigation system with pumps. A dense network of lateral canals will conduct water from the South Ukrainian Canal, from the reservoirs and large pumping stations to the steppe, bringing life-giv- ing moisture to vast tracts of land. Huge lateral canals with a total length of 300 kilometers? will stretch along the fertile tracts from the reservoir on the River Molochnaya to Nogaisk, from the Kakh- ovka Reservoir to Krasnoznamenka, and from Jankoy to Razdolnoye, with pump- ing stations on the canals. +1 cubic meter—35.314 cubic feet. ¢ 1 kilometer—=.621 of a mile, 583 Approved For Release 2004/02/19 : CIA-RDP83-00415R006800050005-6