Rustem Khamitov: «Crop rotation should be reconsidered»

The crop rotation structure should be reconsidered in the republic, the President of Bashkortostan Rustem Khamitov considers.

The last years the nature checked agrarian sector of the republic for strength and showed necessity of changes.

“The leaving year was very difficult: the next drought,” the President said. “From four years three years of drought. In 2012 for ten months we have 84 percent from the last year's volume of gross output. And it is good that we have these 84. In those weather conditions which we had, we could lose half in general. Agricultural crop were lost on the fifth part of areas under crops — the damage made 5,5 billion roubles.”

Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization only exacerbated the uneasy situation. Agriculture is in the risk zone.

“It is very difficult to compete with the largest manufacturers of agricultural products,” Rustem Khamitov added. “All the same our agriculture for the present is not highly effective and modern. We need to solve matters of material and technical infrastructure of the branch, start-up power of capacities on agricultural production and processing. For the last two years farmers bought more than six thousand new machinery and equipment. For these purposes more than billion roubles were allocated. The equipment has 70 percent wear. We should purchase annually 700 tractors, more than 300 combine harvesters, nearby 100 fodder harvesting machines, 30 beet-harvesting machines — total over thousand units of heavy machinery. If the average price of the modern unit reaches five-six millions roubles annually we should direct five-seven billion roubles on purchase of new equipment,” the head of the republic said.