Belarus harvest 2017: people, numbers and one day at the wheel of a harvester in a 90-second video

The harvest 2017 will be over literally in several days. These hot August days the focus is on Vitebsk Oblast, the northern parts of Minsk Oblast and Mogilev Oblast. Due to the climatic conditions, the crops in these areas are harvested last.

This summer’s task number one was to complete the harvest without losses. This seemed even more important as the news about natural disasters was frequent around the world. The end of the harvest campaign in Belarus is just few days away. By 19 August Belarusian farmers harvested more than 6.5 million tonnes of grain or 83.6% of the areas under crops. Minsk Oblast is the leader in terms of harvest, Grodno Oblast in terms of yield.

The progress in the harvest was inspected by President Alexander Lukashenko, who on board a helicopter flew over the districts in three oblasts. The farmers of Mogilev Oblast gave the head of state a festive loaf of bread in honor of one million tonnes of grain.

Despite the busy harvesting schedule all regions tried to find a minute to celebrate the work of people whose names stand behind the statistics figures in the daily news. These people – harvester drivers, their assistants, and students of the summer work brigades – are the faces of our photo-story from the fields.