John Deere sales: 'a lesson learned' (01/26/97)

John Deere sales: 'a lesson learned'

WASHINGTON - American John Deere combines sold to Ukraine through Export-Import Bank financing have been the subject of controversy for more than a year.

Ukrainian populists and leftists complained that the U.S. was unloading its farm machinery on Ukraine and burdening it with credit, when it would be cheaper for Ukraine to produce its own combines.

American correspondents reported that the John Deere combines were going to the large agribusiness complexes, successors of the Soviet collective farms, not to private farmers whom U.S. assistance is supposed to favor.

But when the harvest was in, the John Deere machines received a grudging endorsement from the most Communist of Ukraine's regions - Luhansk Oblast.

According to Natalia Zarudna, counselor of the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, the head of the oblast administration, a Communist, reported that in 1996, 147 combines had worked the fields of Luhansk Oblast: 137 Russian, mostly Dons, and 10 John Deeres. The 10 American machines collected as much grain as the 137 Russian ones.

Ms. Zarudna spoke at a January 17 discussion on U.S.-Ukraine relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, where the question of the John Deere sales came up.

A senior Clinton administration official present at the meeting admitted that the recipients of the American farm machinery were not the ideal choice, but the U.S. faced a dilemma: whether to send food aid to Ukraine or help it feed itself. Agricultural land privatization is still lagging in Ukraine, he said, and called the John Deere sales "a lesson learned."

- R.L. Chomiak

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