Purchase Prices of Agricultural Products And the Planning of Accumulation

The system for economic stimulation of the production and purchase of agricultural products, as formulated by the March (1965) Plenum of the Central Committee of the CPSU, is being successfully implemented. Improvements in the formation of prices of agricultural products must play an important part in implementing this system. However, purchase prices are still not free of a number of shortcomings that were pointed out at the October (1969) Plenum of the Central Committee. Considerable differentiation in profitability also continues to existâboth with respect to individual products and to overall productionâbetween regions, republics and, all the more so, between collective farms. There is a substantial differentiation in the profitability of state farms that have been converted to a system of total economic accountability. Price improvements must be directed toward the solution of a twofold problem: the equalization of returns on the basis of a comprehensive consideration of objective production factors, and the coordination of price formation with the rates and proportions of reproduction. Substantiated prices must become one of the most important elements in the plan and in the creation of the necessary accumulation in agriculture.