MINSK, 14 November (BelTA) – About 110,000 hectares of reclaimed land will be commissioned in Belarus ever year for three years, BelTA learned from Belarusian Agriculture and Food Minister Igor Brylo.
Igor Brylo said: “Land amelioration is one of the most important areas today. The head of state hosted a major conference to discuss it the other day. Unfortunately, the systems that worked 30-40 years ago are no longer so effective, this is why it is necessary to review approaches to this process. We have already determined the amount of lands that we need to reclaim and introduce to crop rotation –slightly more than 400,000ha. We used to commission about 27,000ha of such lands virtually every year but then we saw it was not enough. This is why we've decided to double the amount of such land and reclaim about 55,000ha. For the next three years we intend to introduce nearly 110,000ha of such land to crop rotation every year.”
Igor Brylo added that Belarusian amelioration enterprises need new machines in order to accomplish this goal. “We visited an enterprise of the industrial group Amkodor in Tolochin District. The enterprise demonstrated the entire lineup of machines able to ameliorate any piece of land. We also intend to rebuild the tractor fleet and the technical fleet of amelioration enterprises. Apart from that, it has been decided that a presidential decree on financing amelioration for the next five-year term will be worked out by the end of the year,” he stressed.
In his words, this year the government has helped farmers a lot by assisting with the procurement of fuel and fertilizers, repairs of machines and vehicles. It allowed guarantying virtually uninterrupted work of Belarusian agricultural enterprises in the fields. Apart from that, the agriculture and food minister noted that a large stockpile of mineral fertilizers had been created ahead of the next year's spring sowing campaign. The stockpile is higher than last year.
Igor Brylo also drew attention to tight cooperation between the Agriculture and Food Ministry and the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. He said: “As much as 70% of the seed material that we get has been selected by the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. We are well-supplied with varieties of wheat, rye, barley, rapeseed, and a number of other crops. Despite Western sanctions we can supply our country with our own seeds. We also tightly cooperate with the Land Reclamation Institute and the applied science center for animal husbandry of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.”
