USSR proposes long-term Soviet-Canadian cooperation

Pooling our knowledge to produce food

eo LLAWA — An ll-person Soviet agricultural
legation, headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, a member of

the USSR Politbureau, visited Canada this month on the .

 HVitation of the Canadian parliament and government to

a lore increased cooperation between the two coun-

ae While the visit chiefly dealt with agricultural mat-

: we Gorbachev also spoke on questions of east-west

T nte and, in a private visit with Prime Minister

Tudeau, extended an invitation to him to visit the
viet Union.

The delegation visited farming operations in Ontario
tes Alberta and, while in Ottawa, Gorbachev paid cour-
is Y calls to Opposition leader Eric Neilson and NDP

ader Ed Broadbent.

in a Speech to members of the Senate Committee on
S

Culture and members of the House of Commons —

~anding Committee on Agriculture, Gorbachev out-
ined the USSR’s basic enced policy, and its future
ng-term plans.
abo The chief aim of our visit”, he said, “‘is to learn
ace Canada’s agriculture, its specific features and
€vements. ... We also want to share experiences
Jointly work out the directions and areas of activity
“fe Our contacts and exchanges would be mutually
heficial and provide a good stimulus for developing
dae Cooperation in the scientific, technological trade
“ onomic spheres.

. [believe that the fact we have professional interests
Fen on, that we all serve the same, highest and most
m eet aim of producing food for people, will make our
“etings interesting and useful, will help us to find a
forme on language despite the differences in the. social
™s in which we carry out our farming.”
bye Tbachev outlined the USSR’s 65-year effort to
eae “the old pre-revolutionary legacy — of a
me Ward, scattered agriculture “whose main imple-
Rts Were the wooden plough and the sickle.
an ns Spoke of the mass starvation in those early days
«ew Of the tremendous efforts made by the Soviet people.
and © October Revolution of 1917 gave the peasant land
he “ €ed him from enslaving debts, and for the first time
G £an to work for himself.”’
Orbachev outlined the progress made in the early
, the socio-economic reforms carried through and

told his audience that ‘‘by the mid-1930s the 25 million
small peasant farms were replaced by large scale collec-
tive and state farms.”’

He then explained what World War Two meant to

Soviet agriculture: 70,000 villages burned, practically all
cattle and machinery shipped to nazi Germany. ‘‘ The
total material damage amounted to 30 per cent of the
country’s national wealth at that time. ...””
Gorbachev told of the efforts of the Soviet farmers and
people to rebuild — and that the pre-war level of agricul-
ture was restored in the USSR by 1950. Then came the
campaign to open up virgin lands and the important
decisions made in 1965 to redefine agricultural policy
placing emphasis on expanding material and technical
resources in agriculture and improving life in the coun-
tryside. _
‘Judge for Yourselves’

‘Judge for yourselves,” he asked his listeners.
‘Compared to 1965 the basic production assets in agri-
culture have quadrupled ... the area of improved or
reclaimed land has increased from 20 to 35 million hec-
tares.”” :

The May, 1982 Soviet special Food Program, he ex-
plained, ‘‘for the first time covers the economic, social,
organizational and scientific-technical problems of agri-
culture in their organic unity with all branches of the
agrarian-industrial complex. Its aim is to completely

solve the food problem in the USSR both quantitatively _

and, more especially, in respect to quality.’’

Despite the fact that today Soviet citizens are among
the world’s best fed, ‘“‘we are not satisfied with the diet
structure. People want more high quality meat and dairy
products.”’

Gorbachev outlined plans to meet these demands
which include increased production of grain and fodder,

massive infusion of funds into agriculture’s basic pro- —

duction assets, a 60 per cent increase in power capacity,
70 per cent increase in fertilizer supplies, 40 per cent
increase in irrigated land area, etc.

In all, nearly 500-billion roubles are earmarked for
agricultural expansion and improvement over the next

10 years. - : nie
‘“*We have far-reaching plans for social improvements

in rural areas,’’ he reported. ‘‘As much as 160-million
roubles are allotted for this purpose ...”’

Sharing Capabilities

Turning to Soviet-Canadian cooperation, Gorbachev
said:

‘‘We attribute a definite role in the fulfillment of the
Food Program to commercial, economic, scientific and
technical cooperation with other countries. And here
Canada holds a special place. This is explained by the
similarity of soil and climate in our two countries, and by
the established long-standing practice of regular contacts
and exchanges. That, indeed, is the aim of the Soviet-
Canadian long-term program of cooperation in agricul-
ture.

“Our scientists and experts are interested in your
expertise in soil conservation and minimal soil cultiva-
tion, in your cultivation techniques for certain crops, in
the up-to-date machinery used for this, in your country’s
achievements in dairying and livestock breeding, your
experience in rural construction and in storing and pro-
cessing farm produce.

‘For our part, we are prepared to share with you the
results of our fundamental research in agrology, plant
protection, veterinary medicine, selection gene pools,
and the experience of our large-scale livestock
complexes.

“By pooling the scientific and technical capabilities of
our two countries, we could more quickly solve such
problems as nitrogen fixation by means of gramineous
plants, heightening soil fertility, integrated plant protec-
tion, development of energy-saving techniques, animal
disease prevention, and so on.

“*As you see, there are things we can learn from each
other, things on which we can work together. The scien-
tific and technical potentials and the economies of our
two countries can supplement each other in many ways.
So let us expand mutually beneficial relations. We, for
our part, are in favor of active and broad cooperation
with Canada and other countries that will be dependable
partners ready to promote such cooperation on a long-
term and stable basis, shielding it against political
blackmail and outside pressure. We would like to hope
that this approach will win understanding on the part of
Canada’s political and business world ...”

———

International Focus

Tom Morris

a

These are
dangerous days

>, Ronald Reagan was in
Miami May 20 to crank up the
MOst virulent, anti-Cuban

time. To cheers, Reagan called
= Cuban government a ‘‘new
aSCist regime’? and charged it
with drug smuggling.

Wo days later, pouring
through the gap, Senator Barry
Goldwater urged Reagan to
Use U.S. troops against. the
Cuban revolution, reviving the

Worst days of the anti-Cuban
Ysteria during the early 1960s.

‘Towd assembled in some

Reagan’s drug charges are
quite something — coming
from a country which con-
sumes the lion’s share of illegal
drugs. Just last month, Time
magazine reported that be-
tween 15 and 20 million Ameri-
cans use cocaine which has be-
come a $25-billion business in
the U.S. ae

The gist of Reagans re-
marks and Goldwater’s fol-
low-through, however, are not
about drugs. They are leading
the fight to scrap the 1962 So-
viet-U.S. agreement under
which the U.S. pledged not to
attack Cuba in exchange for a

Soviet promise not to install
missiles in that country. This
agreement helped stabilize the
situation in the Caribbean for
many years and gave valuable
guarantees for Cuba’s securi-
ty.

Reagan isn’t interested in
stability. He’s pushingall along
the line, threatening and insult-
ing both those states which
have overthrown dictatorships
and those in the process of
doing so.

‘Invade Cuba’’ wasmusicto
the ears of the Cuba-haters in
Miami. U.S. overt backing of
anti-Sandinista killers attack-
ing Nicaragua and the murder-
ous regimes in El Salvador,
Honduras and Guatemala is a
blessing to the extreme right in
the U.S. whichis ona hot roll.

The Reagan administration
with its collection of Soviet
haters has in 29 months man-
aged to bring the world to the
brink of a holocaust. It is prob-

ably the most dangerous re-

gime threatening peace ever to
occupy the White House.

The reality is- that some-
where — Central America,
Europe, Mid East, Korea,
Southern Africa or elsewhere
— Reagan may succeed in
creating a flashpoint which will
lead to a major war, including a
nuclear war.

The Soviet Union told the
U.S. on May 23 to stop
threatening Cuba and re-

minded the maniacs in
Washington it will not stand
idle in case of an attack against
the fraternal socialist state.

Reagan knew that before he
spoke. So did Goldwater.
Their provocations are clear
and threatening — they intend
to hold back history or bring
the world down trying.

These are very dangerous
days.

Grenada’s laws
and women

The Canadian parliamen-
tary system is well into its sec-
ond century and for these
many years millions of words
have been expended, thou-
sands of laws and bills passed.

Somehow, however, many
important laws remain un-
passed, lie dormant or in com-
mittee, or simply float around
the dusty corridors of ‘the
Commons never to be con-
sidered. The outdated, un-
democratic, useless Senate
system, for example, con-
tinues to collect political hacks
who have loyally served either
of the two big parties.

Sometimes Parliament can
move with seven league boots
— when passing anti-strike
laws, when declaring the War
Measures Act, when setting up
new, super-secret security
forces, etc. No problem here.

But for its years of effort,

Canada’s parliament hasn’t
done what the four year old
Grenadian government an-
nounced it will do this year.

Grenada’s Prime Minister
Maurice Bishop told the coun-
try April 30 that the Provisional
Revolutionary Government
has drawn up two new laws
which, for the next three
months, will be the subject of a
country-wide public dis-
cussion.

The Family Code Law will
deal with such matters as
paternity, physical abuse and
rape. Under this law, Bishop
said, such problems will be
“‘argued, discussed and raised
in private court session,
excluding the public and
press’’. He pointed out that
when women have problems
trying to establish their chil-
dren’s paternity, trying to ob-
tain justice from physical
abuse or rape, “‘they are afraid

‘to go to the courts due to the

specter of public humiliation’.

The second law is called
The Status of Children Law,
which will remove ‘‘once and
for all the stigma ofillegitimacy
of children in our country.”
When enacted, Bishop said,
“‘we will have only one class of
children —  ffirst class
children.’’

Two not insignificant exam-
ples of what can be done when
the government is a people’s
government.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 3, 1983—Page 9

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