Gene Smallidge knows a thing or two about farming. Now 84 years old and a farmer for 64 years (including 55 years at his current location), Smallidge comes from a farm family, the tradition starting in 1916. Raised on a dairy farm, he now farms crops including corn, soybeans, and alfalfa hay, as well as black Angus cattle.

Presenting to the Prescott Community Club on Aug. 1 at Freedom Park in Prescott, Smallidge shared about a time that he was asked to visit and share his farming knowledge in the Soviet Union.

It all started with an invitation. “Will you come to Russia and teach us how to farm the way you farm?”

Made as the policy of glasnost or “openness” was sweeping the Soviet Union over 30 years ago, it would lead to an unforgettable trip to Russia for Smallidge and his wife Louise, along with a later return to help the farm modernize.

“Our Russian adventure started in 1990,” Smallidge told the gathering at Freedom Park Aug. 1. “At that time the Berlin Wall had come down and Gorbachev was in power, which was the best thing that ever happened to Russians…it didn’t last long.”

Contacted by a friend retired from education about a group of 10 Russians who were coming to the Twin Cities, Smallidge agreed to allow a tour of his farm in Cottage Grove, as a way of showing American farm expertise and diversification.

Taking place March 20, 1990, the Russians arrived towards evening, with six returning to the Mall of America one last time as four stayed for the farm tour. The temperature with windchill measured 20 degrees below zero.

“They followed me around the farm as I did my afternoon chores,” Smallidge shared of the Russian tour group

During the tour with interpreters present, one of the Russians had a request: could Mr. Smallidge come to Russia and teach them the same farm methods?

“He was not a farmer, but he had an interest in all things farming,” Smallidge shared of the official who invited him and his wife to visit the then Soviet Union.

The official controlled a 10,000-acre collective farm 70 miles from the city that was 600 miles from Moscow in Southeast Russia, and had to know farming or he would be robbed blind.

“I thought at first it was just the usual,” Smallidge said of the request to come to Russia. Repeated during dinner, the request was followed up with, “I would not have asked if I was not serious.”

Arriving in Russia at the Moscow airport as an unpaid farm consultant, the Smallidges were transported first to Saratov, a city with nearly a million people, and then to a place named Baskatovka.

The Smallidges quickly got to work on recommendations that would help farm production thrive in Russia as it did in the United States.

“So we met with these farm specialists in the office for several days and they quizzed me on different things,” Smallidge said. With various department heads each responsible for different farm functions, “one of the things they really zeroed in on was ‘teach us how to grow corn,’” Smallidge said.

With Russia experiencing a corn obsession after Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev toured the Garst farm in Iowa during a 1959 state visit, orders from the top down to grow corn in Russia didn’t always match with factors like climate suitability. With Khrushchev boasting that the Soviet Union would “plow the world under” with its corn production, the realities of central planning were quite different.

“Everything was dictated from Moscow,” Smallidge said, including when to plant, how much to plant, and the day to plant, “regardless of whether it was raining or snowing or whatever.”

To help the collective farm meet expectations meant necessary criticism from Smallidge.

“Even though I tried to be tactful I had to be honest,” he said.

Among the honest criticisms he shared was that the Communist system had held back Russian agriculture by 40 years.

“That went out in the regional newspaper unedited,” he said.

The reporter who published the story initially faced a high level criticism for doing so.

Also doing an interview on regional TV, Smallidge said the translator only agreed to translate after stipulating that his name not be attached to the broadcast. Glasnost was relatively new, and criticism frowned on in Russia.

“I know what Gene is going to say,” the translator said in explaining his condition for translating.

Knowing that the Russians weren’t going to be able realistically to carry out his 14 pages of typewritten recommendations without help, Smallidge took home 20 rolls of film, which were then used as part of a presentation and speaking tour to raise the funds for what the Russian farm needed, including what was quickly nicknamed “Gene’s secret corn planter” by the Russians.

Prior to learning of the secret corn planter, the Russians had been planting with what appeared to Smallidge to be 1930s era grain drills. Also at issue on the Russian collective farm was a lack of weed control, making the chance of a good corn harvest unlikely.

Successfully raising the money for the corn planter and other farm needs, the Smallidges then went to see that it was loaded properly at the dock, insisting it be shielded from salt spray and coordinating to have it picked up at the dock by the farm, ensuring that it didn’t disappear into Moscow’s bureaucracy.

Within a year of receiving the new corn planter, the Russian farm had doubled its corn yield, going from 40 bushels up to 80 bushels.

The Smallidges went back in September 1991, transformed in the public perception from critics of Russia to national heroes.

“They put me on national TV this time,” Smallidge said. “Not regional. Telling about the secret corn planter.”

Continuing their attempts to help, the Smallidges then fundraised for a gas corn dryer, returning a third time in 1993. And while told not to expect reimbursement for travel or other expenses, they later received a direct deposit from the Soviet Union, the Russian farm grateful for help given.

With glasnost later ending as Russian politics entered the late ‘90s, the Smallidges were nonetheless able to host workers from the Russian farm in 1991, 1992, and 1993, then hosting kids from the farm for another 10 years afterward.