Opinions & Interviews

SMOLEVICHI DISTRICT, 3 June (BelTA) – The number one goal for Belarus’ agriculture in the mid-term is to enhance its production efficiency, Belarus’ Prime Minister Andrei Kobyakov said after his working trip to Minsk Oblast on 3 June, BelTA has learned.

“The main thing is the prospect for the development of the country’s agro-industrial complex, the enhancement of its production efficiency. Today we have considered two main areas, which are genetics and fodder. This is what makes the basis of our efficiency: to get a bigger output with lower costs and stronger effect,” noted Andrei Kobyakov.

Belarus produces high-quality agricultural products that are both supplied to the domestic market and exported abroad. “We know how to produce. However, the majority of the issues are related to the costs which still surpass the gains from sales. Our task is to raise the economy of the agro-industrial complex, and it will be one of the key goals for 2016-2020,” the Prime Minister explained.

Andrei Kobyakov stressed that the selection gives an opportunity to receive the biggest effect with the lowest labor and material costs and secure the competitive ability of the product. “If we sit idle, our neighbors who are working on the same markets will catch up with us. In this case we can find ourselves in the place of those catching up, which is undesirable,” he said.

The working trip to Minsk Oblast also focused on the use of financial resources in the mid-term. “Financing will be limited in the next five-year period, the same as in other countries. The question is how to use financial resources properly, where to inject them. We should invest money first of all in the growing points. Genetics is one of such points today,” Andrei Kobyakov noted.

The PM got familiar with the progress in fodder storage and the fodder production program for 2016 at ZhodinoAgroPlemElita Company in Smolevichi District, Minsk Oblast. He also visited the NASB Research Center for Cattle Breeding in the village of Rassoshnoye. The Premier was briefed on the progress made in the implementation of the instructions of the head of state and the government to provide scientific support to the cattle breeding development in the country, and also the work done to work out a new selection system in pig husbandry. While on the commercial dairy farm, the Prime Minister was apprised of the efficiency of the advanced technologies developed at the NASB Research Center for Cattle Breeding, including milking operations with the use of the milking plant Karusel and a chance to apply new-generation milking robots.

In the agro-town Budagovo, Smolevichi District Andrei Kobyakov paid a visit to the educational pig-breeding farm that applies the cutting-edge technologies of commercial pig production. The Prime Minister also got familiar with the operation of the selection and breeding dairy farm for 350 head and heard out a report on the provision of the national breeding companies with the domestic high-quality pedigree stock. Andrei Kobyakov also visited an experimental goat farm to take stock of its operation within the Union State programs BelRosTransgen and BelRosTransgen 2.