Head of the regional Ministry of Agriculture reports about progress of spring field work and results of cattle-breeding in the first three months

On 1 May, speaking at a meeting in the Government House of the republic held by the Rais (Head) of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov with participation of the regional Prime Minister Aleksey Pesoshin and the Acting Chairman of the State Council of the republic Marat Akhmetov, the regional Minister of Agriculture and Food Marat Zyabbarov reported about progress of spring field work and results of cattle-breeding in the first three months of the current year.

He said that despite precipitation fertilization of winter crops and perennial grasses was carried out on the area of ​​580 thousand hectares which is 73% of the total area and 36 regions have already started sowing spring crops. “The weather is getting better so it is necessary to ramp up sowing rates and complete sowing on main areas for two weeks,” the regional Minister said.

Informing about the situation in the animal farming, Marat Zybbarov reported that in the first three months of this year, 50 billion rubles of revenue were received from agricultural product sales, 69% (35 billion rubles) of which came from livestock farming, or 97% of last year's total. Livestock and poultry sales accounted for 15.7 billion rubles and eggs for 2.6 billion rubles. However, the milk sales revenues made only 82 per cent compared to same period last years and this is explained by the reduction in purchase prices, the Agricultural Minister said.

 Production is directly related to livestock numbers. And while the number of poultry and pigs grew by 3 and 5 per cent accordingly, the number of cows decreased by three per cent, he explained.

Marat Zyabbarov also informed about construction of dairy farms and forage centers and briefly told about results of spring agricultural fairs held from 14 March to 26 April and which sold agricultural products worth a total of 643 million rubles. “I express my gratitude to our villagers, investors, cities and districts for their worthy contribution and high level of organization of fairs,” he added.