MINSK, 2 June (BelTA) - The implementation of the land reclamation program in the current five-year period will contribute to the inclusion of approximately 415,000 hectares of land in economic use. 240,000 hectares will be used for the reconstruction of land reclamation systems and 175,000 hectares for cultural and technical land reclamation. Sergei Nazaruk, head of the land reclamation and radiology department of the investment, construction, and land reclamation directorate of the Agriculture and Food Ministry, told the media how climate change is affecting the work of land reclamation specialists, BelTA has learned.
Frequent cases of soil moisture deficiency dictate the need to intensify work on restoring the effective use of drainage and irrigation systems, implementing measures to accumulate moisture reserves, and making targeted use of reservoirs. According to the representative of the Agriculture and Food Ministry, there are 26,000 water control facilities and more than 500 pumping stations in the country. In Belarus, there are over 1,000 ponds and reservoirs, 17 of which are large featuring a useful capacity of about 600 million cubic meters.
“When planning the design and reconstruction of land reclamation systems, along with costly strategies to increase reclamation parameters, other strategies are also considered as alternatives, such as switching to more moisture-loving or, conversely, drought-tolerant crops in a specific area, efforts to adjust the timing of agrotechnical measures to take into account the optimal soil moisture for growing agricultural products, and use high-clearance agricultural machinery on reclaimed land,” the head of the land reclamation and radiology department said.
Belarus has achieved certain successes in land reclamation construction. Due to the deterioration of the situation in land reclamation in the 1990s, measures were taken to remedy the situation from 1995 to 2000. In 2000-2020, the country implemented four five-year programs in this area. According to Sergei Nazaruk, work in this area continues today as part of the Development of Agricultural Land Reclamation subprogram of the Agricultural Business state program.
In particular, the implementation of the current five-year program for 2021-2025 will contribute to the return of about 415,000 hectares of land to agricultural use after reclamation, including 240,000 hectares following the reconstruction of reclamation systems and 175,000 hectares - cultural and technical reclamation. The program includes measures to maintain the proper functioning of land reclamation systems covering an area of 2.8 million hectares up to the scheduled repair and maintenance work.
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