Speech at Meeting on Agriculture Sector Development.Part 1
October 2, 2009
Maloarkhangelsk, Orel Region
Вступительное слово на совещании по вопросам развития сельского хозяйства.
2 октября 2009 года
Орловская область, Малоархангельск
PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Good afternoon, colleagues. Todays meeting is very important, and it takes place at a very important time for the countrys rural life the harvest period. This is a busy and difficult time, and it is the best time to examine the situation on the countrys grain market and take a general look at our agricultural policys effectiveness. We will also analyse the preliminary results of this years harvest.
As you know, this year has been difficult for everyone, difficult for all the different sectors of our economy. The crisis has substantially limited access to credit resources, and this has hit all of our producers, in the agriculture sector too, unfortunately. A number of investment projects were put on hold and problems arose with sales, management and profitability. The difficult weather conditions we have experienced this year have also had an impact on the agriculture sector, of course. In any event, this year has been considerably more difficult than last year.
But the package of anti-crisis measures has helped to stabilise the overall situation. Federal budget allocations for carrying out state agricultural development programs increased to 180 billion rubles [around USD 6 billion] this year. This is approximately a third more than last year and almost twice as much as in 2007.
The question of providing agricultural producers with fuel and lubricants and mineral fertilisers on preferential terms has been settled for the most part, and this turned out to be a timely step, as I discussed just before with Governor of Orel Region Alexander Kozlov. The Government informed me that on March 17, a special memorandum was signed setting fuel and lubricant prices at the level they were on January 15 for the period from March to May. Agricultural producers made a total saving of 2.5 billion rubles as a result of these fixed prices, and this is not bad in a crisis year. An agreement on recommended discounts for fuel and lubricant supplies and on supply volumes during the harvest period was signed at the end of May. The discount came to around 10 percent, and this is not bad either, I think, though of course we always want conditions to be even better.
Overall then, the harvest is producing quite decent results around the country, with the experts predicting a yield of 90 million tons of grain. I remind you that we had a particularly big harvest last year 108 million tons, and the year before last brought in 82 million tons. This is sufficient to cover domestic demand and maintain decent export potential. The harvest of potatoes and vegetables is expected to be at least as big as last year.
But the problems do not end here of course. In our country, as usual, this is only the beginning. As you know, one of the biggest problems in our country is that of storing and processing the harvest. We have a lot of problems to address in this area.
We just visited one of the modern grain silos built in Orel Region. It represents a new level in this kind of facility. But the problem is that we have too few such grain silos. We estimated how many we need to build and came up with the rather large figure of around 300 such silos around the country. This represents investment of from USD 1.5 billion to 2 billion dollars. We could feel assured if we had this amount of silo capacity. This is what we need to aim for then, and this is the goal that the regional leaders and heads of the federal agencies responsible for this area should keep in mind.
What are the obstacles in our way? First, there are infrastructure bottlenecks, and not just the lack of grain silos, of course. Second, we are not making sufficient use of the potential domestic demand offers, and third, we are lagging behind technologically.
Today we saw how crops are harvested using modern equipment Russian-made, jointly produced, and foreign and modern agricultural technology. This includes the use of satellite technology. Of course, these technologies are not in use everywhere around the country, to speak frankly, but it is already not such a rare thing. Things are no longer as they were, say, 10 years ago, when a new combine harvester would be the talk of the entire region. This new equipment and technology is everywhere today, but not yet in the quantities we would like.
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15:16О хозяйстве компании Unifishby UnifishRussia687 views
давайте(а не продавайте!) людям дома и землю в деревне,помогайте в развитии подсобного хозяйства и деревня не будет вымирать,и у людей жильё будет!и отечественного мяса на прилавках глядишь будет больше.а будет жильё у семей,то и демографическому кризису придёт конец!
adamok33 1 year ago