TOLOCHIN DISTRICT, 11 November (BelTA) – Farming standards are of great significance in agriculture, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said as he spoke at the plenary session of the national workshop to discuss restoration and use of reclaimed lands in Belarus on 11 November, BelTA has learned.
Attending the meeting were senior officials, members of the government, representatives of ministries, state committees and other state organizations, chairperson of oblast executive committees, heads of districts and land services.
“The topic is not new but very important for agriculture. I will not argue if someone criticizes that we may have started this second or third wave of reclamation not at the right time. But I have made the decision that we need reclamation. Today's major issue is not just land reclamation but farming standards. Of course, land reclamation is the basis. No matter how hard it is, we have to implement the plans which we outlined for ten years within the next two or three years. We have not fulfilled them and are not fulfilling them this year. But I have received assurances from the government and personally from Deputy Prime Minister [Leonid Zayats] that the reclamation plans for this year will be fulfilled,” stressed Aleksandr Lukashenko.
According to the president, Belarusian villages are getting a new look today. Small villages in their classical meaning are disappearing to be replaced by agro-towns. "The village is changing. There will be no villages as we used to know them. And we had hundreds of thousands of them. There will be agro-towns. Large villages will remain. In 10-15 years or maybe earlier, there will be only agro-towns,” the head of state said.
Aleksandr Lukashenko also focused everyone's attention on abandoned land plots and the need to bring order to them. Such land plots are many even around Minsk, the president said. “These land plots should be cleaned up. And we must think what to cultivate there,” he added.
“In addition to land reclamation, we need to use all these land plots for crop cultivation. We can get 100,000-150,000 tonnes of grain from these lands,” the president is convinced.
The head of state also called the development of old farms another urgent area to work on. “We have built farms somewhere, then abandoned them. We have approached this issue. Everything has to be developed and brought in line, and crops have to be cultivated there. You have two years for that,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
