THE COUNCIL OF THE CENTRAL FEDERAL DISTRICT ON AGRICULTURE
Governor of the Smolensk region Sergey Antufiev participated in the session of the Council under the plenipotentiary of the President of the Russian Federation in the Central federal district.
At the meeting that took place on March 15th in Bryansk they discussed the realization of the planned arrangements for preparing and carrying out spring-field farm work and an increase of effectiveness in the developmentof cattle breeding in the regions of Central Russia.
Speaking at the meeting, First deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Viktor Zubkov marked that corn and forage supply in the years 2011-2012 depended on the effectiveness of carrying out the spring sowing campaign. The spring filed operations will be held under difficult economic conditions. The regions that were seriously affected by drought last year will especially feel it. This year they are giving 125 milliard rubles from the federal budget for realization of the government program of rural economy support and 2 milliard rubles extra on seeds and chemical fertilizers equally. Agricultural commodity producers will also be able to make use of a 10% discount on combustive-lubricating materials for seasonal work again. In the near future ‘Rosagroleasing’ starts the realization of the available machinery at a discount of 50%.
According to the First vice-prime minister, cattle breeding is the indisputable priority of the Government of the Russian Federation. In addition to the active directions of the government support they are to allot 5 milliard rubles in the current year to the regions keeping livestock. These are the regions of Vladimir, Voronezh, Kaluga and Smolensk in the Central federal district. This measure will spread over all the methods of management including farmers. Producers will also get subsidies for each cow in the first quarter. Moreover, according to Viktor Zubkov, they have taken a fundamental decision to sell the regions all the fodder grain of the intervention fund at a price half the size of the market price. Therefore, the heads of the regions will get an instrument influencing the price situation.
The participants of the meeting paid attention to the development of small-scale forms of management in the country. Half the farmers’ expenses for landed property registration will be compensated for from the federal budget. The new direction – comfortable dwelling houses for farmers – will be included in the program of development of family dairy-farms up to 2020. Rosselkhozbank will considerably simplify the drawing up procedure to the sum of up to 15 million rubles. The decision-making period will not last over five days. Moreover, in the near future Rosselkhozbank starts a new credit program for the owners of family farms and personal subsidiary plots – start capital for expansion.
Summing up the session of the Council, Governor Sergey Antufiev emphasized that 182 thousand hectares would be given to spring sowing in the Smolensk region, which exceeded the level of 2010 in 8%. It is planned to enlarge the crops: wheat, barley, oats, buckwheat, vegetables, and potatoes. Over 66 thousand hectares of winter tillage has been raised in the agricultural organizations for spring sowing, which is 44% more than in the previous year.
In 2011, they are going to resume financing flax production from the federal budget. The rate for a ton of flax fibre will amount to five thousand rubles. Taking into account the grant from the regional budget the government support will make 12,8 thousand rubles a ton of flax fibre or over 10 thousand rubles a hectare. In the current year the Smolensk region is to sow about four thousand hectares of flax (the total financing volume is 40 million rubles).
Speaking about the development of cattle breeding Sergey Antufiev marked: ‘Due to the measures of the state support in 2010 it was the first time in 20 years we had managed to stop the decline of the cattle stock and contribute to the increase. The carrying out of the investment projects concerning construction and modernization of cattle-breeding objects is a significant reserve for cattle breeding output expansion. In 2012 they plan to place in operation a broiler poultry farm of the first turn at a capacity of 50 thousand tons of fowl and a poultry farm of fowl direction of the first turn at a capacity of 20 thousand tons of fowl a year. The realization of the above-mentioned projects will allow increasing dairy farming in over 120 thousand tons and fowl production in 80 thousand tons’.