Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 23 August (BelTA) – Precision agriculture will help save resources in the agricultural industry, Belarusian Agriculture and Food Minister Leonid Zayats told reporters on 23 August, BelTA has learned.

“We have approached the next stage of the agricultural industry development. Precision agriculture will help save expensive resources – diesel fuel, crop protection agents and mineral fertilizers - and will help increase the competitiveness of our products. This allows company chiefs and experts to take a fresh look at their capacities and new promising solutions that have already been implemented in the world and are available in Belarusian agriculture. The president set a task to promote information technologies and digital economy. This is the beginning of a big journey our agriculture should undertake,” Leonid Zayats said.

The minister noted that Belarus has secured food safety. There is an adequate amount of foodstuffs on the domestic market; extra is sold abroad. “We have quite good foreign currency proceeds. However, in order to compete successfully with products from other countries, we need to come to grips with production expenses. Distribution of resources should be rational and prudent. Using the latest in technology we should optimize our expenses in order to reduce the prime cost and secure high profitability of agriculture,” he said.

The international scientific conference “Precision technologies in agriculture: Best practices and prospects” took place at the National Research Center for Agricultural Engineering at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus and the Agrokombinat Zhdanovichi agricultural enterprise. The forum discussed development, implementation and prospects of precision technologies in agriculture.