According to him, the sowing campaign in Russia was established and quite successfully, its area totaled 80.2 million hectares (300 hectares more than the previous year). By 500 thsd ha compared with last year increased sowing of spring wheat. Increased acreage under maize and sunflower – 300 and 200 thousand, respectively.
the grain retains the previous Ministry of agriculture crop forecast at least 122,5 million tons (last season is 120.6 million tons), including up to 75 million tons of wheat. Thus, Russia for the fourth year in a row will harvest more than 120 million tons of grain, said Patrushev. The harvest of oilseeds is estimated to amount to 22.5 million tonnes (the same as last year), potatoes – 22 million tonnes (last year 7.5 million tons), vegetables – 14.1 million tons (last year 6.4 million tons).
However, the Minister admitted that in some regions, there are unfavorable weather conditions in some areas introduced a state of emergency due to drought. Meanwhile, he assured that the agriculture Ministry keeps the situation under control. “Serious concerns about the gross collection we have, as the expected high yield in a number of other regions, in particular in the Central region and the Volga region where the weather is favorable,” – said Patrushev.
He also noted that a key challenge for the industry has been and remains the stability of the domestic food market. It is necessary to strengthen positions of the Russian market abroad. This requires steadily increasing amounts of high-quality agricultural products. But the intensity of use of agricultural land is increasing, and this creates the risk of reaching the limit of growth of agricultural production on land that is already involved in agricultural production. It is therefore necessary to explore new lands and develop reclamation. Dmitry Patrushev has reminded that now the Ministry of agriculture is developing a new state programme for effective involvement in the turnover of agricultural lands and development of reclamation complex.
“We hope that implementation of measures will allow you to enter in agriculture of at least 12 million hectares of land, create opportunities for upgrading and updating reclamation. Programme’s measures will contribute to realising the potential of agriculture, particularly crop production,” said the Minister.
According to him, the greatest potential increase in production from cereals and grain legumes, and oilseeds. He recalled that, according to the instructions of the President, in 2024, it is necessary to produce 145,1 million of grain and leguminous plan oil-seed is 29.3 million tons.
Another promising area of development of plant growing – the production of fruits and berries. This year the harvest of fruit crops and berries is expected to reach 1 million tons. In accordance with the Doctrine of industrial safety, at anym self-sufficiency should be 60%, however this figure is not reached. The achievement of this standard will contribute to the implementation of the roadmap for the accelerated development of production fruit production, which the Ministry is developing on behalf of the President.
in addition, there are prospects for further development of viticulture. According to Dmitry Patrushev, each year the area of new vineyards growing in 2019 was laid down nearly 7 thousand hectares, which is 40% more than the year before. By 2025, the cumulative figure is expected to reach 30 thousand. the positive effect in this matter the Minister expects by the end of this year – primarily due to the new law on viticulture and winemaking, which came into force on 26 June 2020.
