Tons of Food Rotting at Ports, Soviets Are Told

Tens of thousands of tons of food purchased abroad to try to make up for consumer shortages are rotting at ports throughout the country because of the breakdown of the Soviet distribution system, Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov said Sunday night.

In a speech broadcast on Soviet television, Ryzhkov blamed mismanagement and warned: “If things do not improve shortly, we’ll have to take tough measures against leaders of all ranks.”

Ryzhkov’s candid speech went to the heart of the problem that analysts say presents the most serious threat to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev--continuing and worsening shortages in the marketplace.

Although Soviet authorities have discussed failures in the country’s transportation system, Ryzhkov’s televised comments marked a rare acknowledgement from a senior official of the loss of goods purchased abroad by the Soviet Union with foreign currency, which is especially valuable in this country where the ruble is not convertible on the world’s currency exchanges.

“It will be the happiest day of my life when we stop purchasing food abroad,” Ryzhkov said. But he said that as long as the Soviet Union is spending money to buy food from abroad, if it rots before reaching the stores, someone should be punished.

The prime minister noted in an indirect way that 70% of the country is suffering from serious food shortages.

“In about 30% of our country, the food supply situation is not bad,” Ryzhkov said. “I don’t say everything is fine, but the needs of the local population are satisfied in those cases in terms of food production.”

The prime minister said that 1990 will be a crucial year for Gorbachev’s policy of perestroika, or restructuring, and that the government considers it imperative that consumers see improvements by then.

“I am convinced that the illness which is now plaguing the economy can be cured,” he said.

Ryzhkov noted that the traditional manner of dealing with chronic food shortages in the Soviet Union--by increasing agricultural output--is no longer enough.

Instead, he said, the country must “improve the system of storing, transporting and processing food.”

To that end, he said, the country is increasing by about 20% the number of factories that will handle food processing, such as canning.

But the problem of transportation remains. The official Tass news agency reported this week that 29 million tons of grain, 1 million tons of meat and 25% of the country’s vegetables are lost each year between field and table.

The problems with transporting food in the Soviet Union are caused primarily by two things: a shortage of spare parts for vehicles and a lack of fuel.

Tass reported Sunday that 1,700 trains are stalled in the country for lack of coal.

In a separate report, the evening news program “Vremya” said that 300 containers are stacked in a rail depot in the Vladimir region awaiting shipment to other parts of the country. The deliveries have been stalled because of the large number of trucks waiting to be repaired and a shortage of spare parts, Vremya said.

The result of the country’s various transportation problems, said Ryzhkov, is that 25,000 tons of food and several thousand tons of detergent, in short supply for months in most parts of the country, are waiting at ports and depots for delivery to stores.

“The food is rotting,” the prime minister said. “The average person doesn’t understand why this is going on, and why no one is being punished.”

He cited another example, saying that the Soviet Union signed a contract with Czechoslovakia to buy 1 million pairs of shoes but had to renege on the agreement after it found it was unable to pick up the shoes and bring them to the Soviet Union.

The Soviet newspaper Trud (Labor), said one sugar processing plant in the Ukraine has been closed and up to 30 more in the republic may be shut down--at the height of the sugar beet harvest--because no steps are being taken to ensure the transportation of the sugar to markets outside The republic.