August 21 2002, 10:14

Belarusian farming came out with profit

Belarusian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Popkov has told reporters that this year Belarusian farming sector has crossed the threshold of unprofitableness and towards mid-August showed a modest result of 2 percent profit, against minus 7 percent for the same period a year ago. He also said that, according to preliminary estimates, the country's farming industry was to reach 8 to 10 percent of profitability till the end of this year.

He said that current result had become possible thanks to good organisation of this year's harvesting campaign. The whole complex of harvesting works was completed within 20-25 days, which had never been done before. Till the moment, grains and pulses are harvested on 99 percent of area with average yield 2.67 tonnes per hectare. 55,000 to 60,000 hectares of pulse crops and maize remain to be harvested.

Over the first seven months of 2002 Belarusian farms produced 2 million tonnes of milk (7 percent up from last year's figure for the same period), 400,000 tonnes of meat (5 percent more than last year), 6.085 million tonnes of grain. Popkov said that with the account of all kinds of farms, total grain crop this year was estimated at 6.5 million tonnes of grain.

Belarusian agriculture is based on Soviet-type state-owned farms, called kolkhozes, providing overwhelming majority of agricultural output.

Popkov said that this year government intended to import some 200,000 to 300,000 tonnes of wheat of hard varieties.

Speaking about exports of Belarusian farm produce he said that Belarusian animal products were in good demand in Russia thanks to low price. For the first half-year 2002 Belarus exported animal products on the total value of $105 million.

During these six months Belarus imported animal products for the value of $29.3 million, including meat and meat products on $18 million, dairy products on $11.3 million. Specific weight of imports in relation to domestic production was 5.5 percent in pork, 0.8 percent in beef, 2.3 percent in sausages, 1.9 percent in butter, 1.4 percent in hard cheeses.

The government is currently working at preparation of the country's farming sector to the new farming season, Mr. Popkov continued. He believes in the new season the country "will suffer from a devastating drought". Therefore, areas planted to winter crops, such as winter wheat and triticale, will be expanded by 120,000 to 150,000 hectares.

This year winter crops were planted on 1.124 million hectares.

Kolkhozes of 4 out of 6 regions have been charged with a task to produce an extra 1 million tonnes of grain in order to meat the target crop figure, produced by supreme political power.