Corn in the USSR: The 1960 Decree That Transformed Soviet Food Production
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Maize occupied a prominent place in the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR "On measures to increase the production and improve the quality of food products made from potatoes, corn, vegetables, fruit and grapes, and to expand trade in these products," dated 20 January 1960. The document gave corn particular emphasis as a raw material for the food industry.
Aimed at improving the diet of the Soviet people, this resolution set out concrete measures for expanding the production of a wide variety of foods from corn — breakfast cereals, canned goods, starch-and-syrup products, and other items.
Corn in the USSR brought about a genuine transformation in the food industry and in agronomy. 
What did the Central Committee resolution require?
The resolution obliged the councils of ministers of the republics, the territorial and regional executive committees, the economic councils (sovnarkhozy), and Tsentrosoyuz to carry out the following measures:
- significantly broaden the range of food products made from corn, and set up the production of puffed corn — sugar-glazed and salted — corn sticks, and other items intended for home use as well as for canteens and snack bars;
- produce from corn polished and quick-cooking groats, and semolina-type flour for baking, for pancakes, for children, and for confectionery;
- establish the production of table syrups, dry fruit jellies (kissel), flour for instant puddings, food-grade crystalline glucose, and starch;
- extract the germ during the processing of corn grain and produce from it corn oil of high nutritional quality;
- sharply increase the output of quick-frozen fruit, berries, and vegetables, as well as sweet corn (at milk-ripeness) in kernels and on the cob.
The resolution also set precise growth targets for individual products made from corn and potatoes. For example, the output of corn flakes and puffed corn was to reach 55 thousand tonnes by 1965, starch syrup 553 thousand tonnes, glucose 34 thousand tonnes, and so on.
To make production on this scale possible, the plan called for the introduction during 1960–1965 of new processing capacity able to handle the corn from 2,620 hectares per day. At the same time, measures were outlined to supply the corn-processing industry with raw material — grain of specific varieties and types.
The Councils of Ministers of the RSFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Kazakh SSR, the Moldavian SSR, and the Kirghiz SSR were instructed to organise, on state and collective farms, the production of dent, flint, and rice corn. Dent corn is used mainly in the starch-and-syrup industry, while flint and rice corn serve for preparing breakfast cereals — flakes and puffed corn.
Increasing the output of corn products in the USSR also required expanding the trade in them. For this reason, the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR pointed to the need to develop sales in shops and culinary departments, as well as on streets and in parks — selling corn on the cob, hot puffed corn, and a wide assortment of other corn products.
All of this accompanied the expansion of corn production to the scale we have today.
