Marat Akhmetov: Tatarstan will be fully self-sufficient in vegetables, potato, grains and other kinds of agricultural products

Today, a briefing with the participation of the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan – Minister of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Tatarstan Marat Akhmetov took place in the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Marat Akhmetov spoke in details about the harvesting campaign of the current year. This year the sowing area is 2.9 million ha, which corresponds to the level of previous years, where 502,000 ha are sowed with winter crops and 1.8 million ha are sowed with spring crops. 57,700 ha are sowed with sugar beet, 86,600 ha are sowed with rape, 8,600 ha are sowed with potato, 1,700 ha are sowed with vegetables.

Some districts of the republic have suffered from the drought. Northern districts are at advantage. Now, during the harvesting, farmers have different crop yields. Thus, in Bugulma municipal district the crop yield is 17.6 dt/ha, in Zainsk municipal district it is 28 dt/ha, in Apastovo municipal district it is 26 dt/ha, and in Tetyushi municipal district it is 25 dt/ha.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Tatarstan spoke about long lasting July rains, which made the situation with dry soils much better. The state of technical and fodder crops, corn, potato and vegetables got better. Marat Akhmetov said that in the current year the record sugar beet yield was likely to be received (over 2 million tones), which would partly improve the overall situation in Tatarstan AIC suffered from the draught.

By the current day 97,300 ha have been thrashed, 218,000 tons of grains have been harvested at the average crop yield of 22.4 dt/ha.

However, harvesting is going to be difficult – according to the weather forecast August will be rainy. Moreover, the minister said that there were only 3,500 harvester-threshers in the republic. “Last years we were not able to buy new agricultural machinery”, added Marat Akhmetov. So the harvesting is going to be difficult. At the same time the task is to harvest grains from 50,000 ha daily, which is 4% of all sowing areas.

Marat Akhmetov also told that by the current day over 579,000 tons of hay, about 2,038,000 tons of haylage, 5,000 tons of woody forage had been preserved, he also informed that 40.5 kg of mineral fertilizers per ha on average were used in Tatarstan in the current year. In Zainsk municipal district 79.4 kg of mineral fertilizers per ha were used, in Sarmanovo municipal district – 65.9 kg/ha, in Nizhniy Kamsk municipal district – 60.4 kg/ha.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Tatarstan shared the plans for the next year. In order to stand up against the drought, it is planned to increase the winter grain crop area by 100,000 ha.

Beside this, it is planned to increase deep tilling area by 600,000-700,000 ha. Thus, the drought resistance of fields will also increase. “We have already gained the experience of work under the conditions of a drought. That is why we take prevention measures”, stated the Minister.

Marat Akhmetov also assured that this year Tatarstan would be fully self-sufficient in vegetables, potato, grains and other kinds of agricultural products. For the forthcoming winter forage for animals has been preserved. “Purchasing prices for grains will be set at t5he end of the current week”, said the Minister of Agriculture and Food of the Republic of Tatarstan.