the same time the state procured 48.8 billion Rbls worth of grain. From 1954 to 1960, the total sown area of land in the USSR increased by 46 million hectares, with 90% of the increase due to the Virgin Lands campaign. Overall, the Virgin Lands campaign succeeded in increasing production of grain and in alleviating food shortages in the short term. The enormous scale and initial success of the campaign were quite a historical feat. However, the wide fluctuations in grain output year to year, the failure of the Virgin Lands to surpass the record output of 1956, and the gradual decline in yields following 1959 mark the Virgin Lands campaign as a failure and surely fell short of Khrushchev's ambition to surpass American grain output by 1960. In historical perspective, however, the campaign marked a permanent shift in the North-Kazakhstani economy. Even at the 1998 nadir, wheat was sown on almost twice as many hectares as in 1953, and Kazakhstan is currently one of the world's largest producers of wheat. Yearly Virgin Land performance 1954 The first Virgin Land harvest exceeded expectations. The total output of grain for Virgin Land regions in 1954 was 14,793,000 tons greater and 65% higher than the average grain yield for the period of 1949–1953. By the start of 1955, 200,000 tractors had been sent to the Virgin Lands, 425 new sovkhozy had been created, and a total of 30 million hectares (300,000 km) of land had been ploughed up, 20 million of which were put under crop. 1955 The 1955 Virgin Lands crop fell far below expectations due to a severe drought in the virgin land regions, especially Kazakhstan, which received only one-tenth of its normal rainfall. Even though the total sown area in 1955 was almost double that of 1954, the grain harvest went down by 35% from 1954 in Kazakhstan. However, other regions of the Soviet Union had a particularly good year, which offset poor Virgin Land performance and resulted in an overall increase in grain harvest for the Soviet Union. Khrushchev was forced to acknowledge the validity of some of the opposing viewpoints regarding the Virgin Lands campaign but he maintained that as long as two harvests in a five-year period were good, the plan would be a success in terms of recovering costs and making a profit. 1956 Enthusiasm over the Virgin Lands campaign dampened after the poor harvest