Minister of Agriculture and Food of the republic urges the regions not to save on seeds

On February 9, reporting on the system of seed production in Tatarstan at a traditional meeting held by Tatarstan President Rustam Minnikhanov at the Government House of the republic, Minister of Agriculture and Food of Tatarstan Marat Akhmetov asked regional heads and heads of farms not to save on the quality of seeds.

"It has been proved in practice that the yield difference between reproductions reaches 5 centners per hectare even when using the same technology. Most farms and regions pay serious attention to this matter. However, there are the regions with the share of original and elite seeds making only a minor part,” Akhmetov said.

The Minister cited Atninsky, Tetyushsky, Nurlatsky and Kukmorsky regions, where the high-quality seed material constitutes from one to two third of the total amount of seeds, as positive examples, while in Mendelevsky, Aksubaevsky, Verkhneuslonsky and Agryz regions this figure makes from 4 to 7 per cent only.

According to him, there are no problems with providing quality seeds. Only the seeds of corn, sunflower and sugar beet have to be purchased externally. At the same time, some agricultural producers try to save money by buying the cheapest seeds and get crops of poor quality. Akhmetov recommended that farmers should not make such mistakes.