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National Geographic : 1979 Jun
Contents
academy, attending formal lectures on the ways of Soviet agriculture and learning how to drive Soviet tractors. Our lessons cen tered around statistics. We often became disheartened by the constant, ponderous references to production and consumption figures, when we were much more interest ed in theory and methods. Toward the end of June we finally moved from the classroom to the farm, all of us as eager as colts sprung from a corral. Our first BOTHBYJAMESTOBIN "Woman's work," chides a neighbor as Stephen Renquist washes his clothes (facing page) at Rassvet. Here the Americans lived with host families and insisted on doing their own laundry. Nina Skudnaya carries well water (above) for the wash-her house lacks indoor plumbing. When she decided that another 4-H'er had not scrubbed his clothes clean, Nina asked, "Didn't your mother teach you anything?" stop was for three days of work at the Ulya novsky swine complex, some 19 kilometers outside Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia. The Soviets like to trumpet the mechaniza tion of their farms, and here we saw a good example of a modern layout. The complex produces 40,000 hogs a year, all in climate-controlled barns, with one worker for every 1,500 animals. "The entire farm is mechanized," the farm direc tor said proudly as we viewed the operations on closed-circuit television. Every day a caravan of garbage trucks from Minsk brought forty tons of food scraps collected from schools, hotels, restau rants, and hospitals. The garbage was ground and cooked, supplements were add ed, and the liquid was pumped to the feeders pneumatically. The hogs seemed to enjoy the liquid feed, and we were told that it speeds their growth, though Americans would probably shudder at the fat content of these animals. Stringent sanitation controls are needed with this mechanization and with such large numbers of animals. Whenever we entered or left the complex, we were required to take showers; hogs are susceptible to disease that can be brought in on clothes. After four showers a day I began to feel like a raisin. From our first day on a Soviet farm we became aware of the major difference be tween a Soviet and a U. S. farmer. When I asked a worker in the garbage-processing plant at Ulyanovsky about the protein con tent of the feed, he answered, "I don't know. I am only a mechanic. You'll have to ask the feeding specialist." An American farmer could give you a very good idea of the protein content. He is involved in the entire production cycle. A Soviet farm worker, on the other hand, sticks to one job, like an assembly-line worker. Farm directors say this is easier on the worker and more efficient. The Soviet farmer also works a regular shift, like a factory employee. I remember the surprise on one Russian's face when James "Jamie" Schesser of Kansas said, "My dad will have us out working in the fields un til we can't see our hands in front of our faces because it is so dark." (The practice would be exhausting in this latitude during summer, because it stays 778
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