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~, -.--.. ~'_:~:~~~~~~ WATER 002392 ,.~.~.:-..;.; A r:-" ':"":.-' ..,_$:,.... REOO'URCID DEVElliOPMENT PROGRAMS 11 .... publics, is a form of river development subordinated to the prime objective of power production. . The Russian endeavor, on the basis of a dozen creditable reports, d. iv:ergent as to arithmetic! but in basic ll,gree~en~ as .to trend, appears to have far greater velOCIty than the U. S. lrrlga:tIon program. Using the best and identical set of (Russian) figures that both the Department of Agriculture (Foreign Agricultural Service) and the Department of State (Division of Research and Analysis) offer inde- pendently as "authoritative" the U. S. S. R. nationwide total of "gen- eral area with irrigation networks" increased 12,594,000 acres in the 5 years fromJ anuary 1, 1951, to January 1, 1956. . By another comparison the U. S. S. R. Council of Ministers' "direc- tive" reported by the United Nations to all and sUIidry Soviet officials requires an increase of 5,187,000 newly irrigated acres in the next 5 years ending in 1960. The same authority simultaneously "directed" its servants in the same period to "bring into cultivation" 7,657,000 acres of land-drainage construction or reconstruction. The United States through the reclamation program has irrigated some 7 million acres in the 55 years since the Reclamation Act became law in 1902. In both countries the operation is essentially the same under Central Government auspices to.aid t.he production of the same types of crops. In another earlier broadside, reported by a British eyewitness, Soviet Russia is about halfway through a 15-year program "to in- crease by irrigation food and fiber production to feed and clothe 100 million more Communists." To this there is simply no American statistical equivalent. The Soviets calculate their irrigated areas by hectares (2.4711 acres toa hectare), and their categories of reporting periods and criteria of irrigation may vary from the American standards, but apparently not enough to reverse the trends. STATE DEPARTMENT DATA ON IRRIGATION The Department of State (Division of Research and Analysis) summarizes the U. S. S. R. lrrigation endeavor in the following language: . . The area. provided with. irrigation networks is large in absolute terms- about 11 million hectares. As could be expected, this is only a small percent of the total sown acreage (5 percent). Most of the irrigation is by surface water, with underground water accounting for about 12 percent of the total. The increase over the past years has been considerable. However, there is some doubt about the definition .of irrigated land. . There is reason to believe 1 that the data below are the Sum of "irrigated" and lIwatered" 2 land,' since- the "watered" land is only a fraction as productive as the actually irrigated acre- (lge, the actual increase may be much smaller. . Area with irrigation networks . Million 1!-ectares Million hectares 1939____________n____..~________ 6. 0 194L__________________.______~__ 6.1 1956_____~_________n_._________11:0 1913______________~_____________ 4.0 1928_______~c~________:~c_______ 4,3 1932___h_____~_______.~__n____ 5.6 1 An autho~itative 'article by v. ':J?_ppov_'in__Sov_etskoye KhloP,kovodstvo, March 14, 1953,. specifically referred to- the prewar _ .figure_ ': of- .6 _ million hectares as including "watered" acreage. .. .- '. _ '___ _, ,_ , ._ 2 Land supplied with wells, ponq.s" -canaIB,. and pipeline_s to 8~ppleme.nt natural _water. resourcef:l. . .