Russian farmers will not experience problems with autumn sowing, as domestic seeds are already used for it. According to TASS, Andrey Razin, Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the country, spoke about this.
He spoke about a number of measures being taken to support Russian seed production. In particular, the authorities launched a federal scientific and technical program for the development of agriculture, which involves an almost complete reduction in dependence on imports of grains, oilseeds and other important crops in the coming years, as well as support for the construction of breeding and seed centers in the form of half the cost compensation. Separate decisions have been taken to increase the production of potatoes and vegetables. For example, this is subsidizing part-time farms for the production and sale of potatoes and fruits and vegetables. Within the framework of such a project, in particular, it is planned to increase the area under commercial potatoes to almost 300,000 hectares by 2025, and its production to almost 7.6 million tons, or 15 percent from last year. However, the deputy minister named successful marketing from foreign companies as an important problem in this regard, which has already made their products known and switched all the main attention of the market to them. Our country needs the same powerful campaign, but, above all, for this it is necessary to guarantee the high quality of products.
U.S. farmers to double planting costs
U.S. farmers to double planting costs
As for fertilizers, here Razin does not see any problems at all. He said that farmers are already fully provided with the necessary volumes both for winter sowing and for the next spring work. This became possible thanks to the measures taken by the authorities to curb price growth and export quotas. Also, according to the Deputy Minister, a procurement plan was developed from June of the current to May of next year. In total, it is planned to purchase more than 15 million tons of fertilizers, including seven million tons of ammonium nitrate, which is 20 percent more than in the same period last year. In total, farmers, according to him, have harvested nine million hectares to date.
The situation with agricultural machinery is worse. So far, according to Razin, farmers use stocks from warehouses of dealerships, but the supply there is very limited, and delivery times can reach several months. Nevertheless, a number of measures to preserve the Russian agricultural machinery fleet have also been adopted. For example, this is the zeroing of customs duties on certain types of equipment and components and an increase in support from Rosagroleasing. The company increased to 2.5 billion rubles the funding limit for providing loans to dealerships for the purchase of spare parts and consumables. Since June, the company has already begun accepting relevant applications from dealers in the Moscow region, Kuban, Rostov and Omsk regions, as well as Bashkiria and other regions.