MINSK, 29 April (BelTA) – We need rural areas tidied up, Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko said at a meeting held on 29 April to discuss the current situation in the agricultural sector of the country, BelTA has learned.
In the current conditions, especially amid the pandemic and turbulence in the global food market, the Belarusian agricultural sector has ensured the country's food security and also made great contribution to the development of the economy and to export.
Nevertheless, Aleksandr Lukashenko pointed to a number of issues that need to be resolved shortly. He shared his observations of his trip to the Chernobyl-hit regions. On the way there Aleksandr Lukashenko could assess from a helicopter the situation on agricultural land more broadly.
"I resolutely insist on intensifying reclamation efforts. We need to focus our resources on this. We are losing huge areas, thousands of hectares. They are being overgrown with vegetation which will grow into unnecessary trees (we have enough forests). Reclamation, land management, increasing soil fertility are the goals of state importance. This is our job. Therefore, I will ask the minister and the deputy prime minister to deal with these problems," the president said.
He suggested setting up a special reclamation unit in each district. "Reclamation is the most important issue for us. Every region should start dealing with this problem very closely," the Belarusian leader stressed.
Aleksandr Lukashenko said that keeping lands tidy is important. So is their effective use for the development of the livestock sector which needs a fodder base.
Another problem that the head of state drew attention to is a large number of idle homesteads and abandoned houses in some villages. He wants the government to get this issue settled during this year: either to sell homeless houses or demolish them, reclaim the land and involve it agricultural turnover.
At the same time, Aleksandr Lukashenko noted a positive trend: citizens have recently begun buying vacant lots and houses in rural areas more actively.
Similarly, Aleksandr Lukashenko demanded to solve the problem of unkempt former farms: “We have built new animal breeding complexes and abandoned technologically backward production facilities. Now trees are growing on their roofs." The head of state wants this problem to be solved within two or three years stressing that these facilities should not become "monuments of mismanagement" and that freed land should be used for the needs of agriculture. "We need to put everything in order!" the president said.
