[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] sugar beet connection

[richard benert]

A few months, ago, Royal Natzke asked whether Germans grew sugar beets in
Russia.  I've just run into some information that doesn't answer that question
directly, but may be of minor interest anyway.  If not, please delete.  It's
in a book by one George Pavlovsky, "Agricultural Russia on the Eve of the
Revolution" (1968).  He mentions that the beets were introduced to Russia in
the provinces of Tula and Orel in the early 1800s.  One of the pioneers was
Count Bobrinski, who, after trying it on his Tula estate, discovered the
warmer climes of Ukraine were better, so he started growing them on his estate
(how nice to have several!) in Kiev province.  From here, Pavlovsky says,
sugar beet growing spread over Ukraine and the southwest provinces.  So much
sugar was produced (it was grown mostly by large landowners) that prices fell
in the 1880s, leading to attempts to control output and home marketing.  This
was done by the Ministry of Finance in 1895 (central planning wasn't new to
Russia in 1917!).  With restrictions on marketing at home, Russian growers
exported in great quantity until, in 1902, the Brits, facing a collapse of
prices in the West Indian sugar cane trade, called a Sugar Convention in
Brussels that effectively put heavy restrictions on the export of Russian
sugar to western markets.  Russia simply exported more to eastern markets and
Finland, and, of course, prices in England went up until England cried Uncle
and allowed Russian sugar again in western markets in 1907.  So now you know
more than you wanted to about that!

Before the war, Pavlovsky says, about 80% of Russia's sugar beets were grown
in Kiev and Podolia provinces (Volhynia is not mentioned, but it's right
next-door to Podolia), and in central Ukraine.    The rest was produced in the
"Central Agricultural Region", reaching as far east as Voronezh and Tambov
(not to the Volga).  Smaller amounts began to be grown in Cherson and the
Kuban (maybe by some Germans?).  After about 1900, peasants began to grow
sugar beets.  Whether any German farmers grew sugar beets is, of course, not
mentioned.  It seems possible, though, that the large German farms in South
Russia might have gone into it.  Regarding Volhynia, I can only report that
Jvrg Wiesner's 1980 dissertation on "The Social and Economic Condition of
German Farmers in Volhynia, 1919-1939" does indicate that sugar beets were
grown in Polish Volhynia between the wars.

Dick Benert