Moscow to Pay Farmers Partly in Foreign Currency

The Soviet government announced today that it will start paying farmers partially in foreign currency in a bid to slash crippling agricultural imports and boost domestic production.

Starting this year farmers growing wheat and other commodities will be paid in foreign currency for anything they produce above average levels from 1981-1985, Tass press agency said.

The decision appeared to apply initially only to state and collective farms but Tass said recipients will be free to spend the foreign currency, presumably dollars, as they wish.

Soviet Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, speaking in June before the new plan was announced, told the Soviet Parliament that the country will spend $7.9 billion on imports of grain and other food this year.

The Soviet Union imported 38.5 million tons of grain in the year ending June 30.

The farm payment plan, first put forward by radical members of Parliament during its recent session, is the latest in a series of moves aimed at shaking up the agricultural sector, one of the major tasks faced by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev.

With shortages of basic food products apparently growing rather than decreasing, radical economists have criticized the spending of precious foreign currency on food imports, saying it would be more efficient to pay it directly to farmers.