Khrushchev

• Khrushchev abolished the MTS
• In 1954, Khrushchev introduced the Virgin Land campaign. The aim of this was to increase the amount of land to be cultivated
• In 1950, 96 million acres of land were given over to the production of whear. By 1964, this had increased to 165 million acres
• The aproach to using the 'virgin soil' was flawed. The land was overused with little attention paid to crop rotation. The effect was a reduction in soil fertility
• Little was done to coutner soil erosion, a sa result of the virgin soil regions being arid, close to the Central Asian desert and prone to wind storms
• In the long term, productivity and production slowed. The harvest of 1963 saw grain production fall to 107 million compared to 140 million tonnes in the previous year