The food procurement in the Central-Chernozem district during the First World War (1914–1917)

Abstract

One of the most important tasks of the government during the First World War was to supply the army and the front with food and fodder. Food-producing regions played a leading role in this task. One of these economic districts was the Central-Chernozem district, located South of Moscow. Most of the bread of the warring Russia was supplied by the little Russian and Volga regions. The entire set of food products for the army – bread, meat, vegetables, fats, sugar – was supplied by the Central Black Earth region due to the diversity of its geography. If the northern provinces specialized in oats, the southern ones gave vegetable oils. However, the significance of the great Russian black earth provinces cannot be overestimated – with the onset of the food crisis, they worked to supply the old capital-Moscow, and the Western front located in Belarus. With the expansion of the range of centralized food supplies and increasing transport difficulties, the role of Central Russia in the supply chain has increased even more. The gradual transition of the procurement policy to fixed prices and centralized planning took into account the surpluses of all types of food products. The proximity of the Central Chernozem region to the front lines suggested that the military authorities would purchase some of the products themselves, bypassing the structures of the Ministry of Agriculture. In 1917, almost all food was subject to the state monopoly, since the country, exhausted by the war, now supplied all raw materials to the front.