Marat Akhmetov reported to the President of Tatarstan about financial support for the upcoming sowing campaign

2 February 2019, Saturday

The Vice-Premier of Republic of Tatarstan - Minister of Agriculture and Food Marat Akhmetov reported on the financial support of the upcoming spring field work today at a meeting in the Government House of Tatarstan. The meeting in the form of videoconferencing was held by the President of Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov. The meeting was attended by the Prime Minister of Tatarstan Alexey Pesoshin.

Marat Akhmetov said that financial costs of the sowing season of 2019 are estimated at 25 billion rubles. More than half of this amount are borrowed funds. Today, banks have approved bids for amount of 7.7 billion rubles, about 4 billions of which have been received.

According to the minister, in general, the amount of approved loans significantly exceeds the level of last year. But the activity of districts varies greatly. Marat Akhmetov also payed attention to the lack of effective work with small forms of management. “For the moment, the Association of Farms is very passive. Mere criticism is not enough. We need to build more systematic work with our territorial departments and provide methodological assistance in this direction” said the Head of Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic.

Analyzing the needs of individual municipalities, Marat Akhmetov informed that the Almetyevsk district needs at least 348 million rubles for sowing. Today, banks received only 2 applications. Cheremshansky district needs 284 million rubles, 3 applications for 12.3 million rubles have been received here. The Minister also noted the low activity of the Bavlinsky, Mendeleevsky and Yutazinsky districts. “I ask heads of farms, farmers to show more activity. Resources will not come themselves. Moreover, the preferential interest rate is no more than 5 percent and so far we have enough limits”.

With regard to budget support, the bulk of the funds will be brought to agricultural formations until mid-March, Marat Akhmetov said. This is 1.2 billion rubles for achieving the target indicators, 780 million rubles for unrelated (hectare) support, 1.2 billion rubles for milk subsidies, and 1 billion rubles for debt to agricultural producers in 2018 for technical re-equipment.

Another 1.5 billion rubles of subsidies will be used to purchase mineral fertilizers. However, there are a number of requirements. The first is that a commodity producer in order to receive these funds must prove the accumulation of a crop of at least 30 kg of active substance per hectare. In a week, having presented the confirmation, it will be possible to receive these subsidies. This support is maintained only until March 30. “These subsidies are 1.5 billion rubles or more than 500 rubles / ha can be used only for the purchase of fertilizers in the future. The right to choose the type of fertilizers and suppliers remains to agricultural entities ”, added the Head of the Ministry of Agriculture of Republic of Tatarstan.

In general, according to the minister, only 21.6 kg d / ha have been accumulated by the moment. He reminded that this year the task is to accumulate over 70 kg of active ingredient per hectare. Meanwhile, a number of districts did not cross even the 10 kilogram point: the Novosheshminsky, Apastovsky, Agryzsky, Cheremshansky, Kaybitsky and Kamsko-Ustyinsky districts. Among the leaders are Zainsky (57 kg dV / ha), Tetyushsky (53 kg dV / ha), Sarmanovsky (42 kg d./ha), Tukayevsky (41 kg d.a / ha ), Buinsky (36 kg ai / ha), Sabinsky (34 kg ai / ha) and Atninsky (31 kg ai / ha) districts.

Rustam Minnikhanov noted the need to intensify work on the accumulation of mineral fertilizers. He urged the minister to keep this topic under constant control. In turn, Marat Akhmetov added that the situation should be straightened already in February, when agricultural entities will begin to receive support for the purchase of fertilizers.

Full text of the speech: http://agro.tatarstan.ru/eng/file/pub/pub_1746138.pdf

Full video of the speech: http://ftp.prav.tatar.ru/agro/2019/2/020219.mp4