An official meeting, to mark the Tatarstan farming movement’s 20th anniversary, has today been held at the Korston business centre. An attendee was President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov.

The Association of Farmers and Peasant Farmsteads chief Kamiyar Baitemirov summed up the work and set tasks for the future. He said the farming movement in Tatarstan had rapidly progressed since 1990. The association was established in 1991. “In the 20 years of making and developing, the farming entities have had a market relations schooling. The agro-industrial branch is hard to imagine without farmers, farmsteads and agricultural consumer cooperatives,” K. Baitemirov noted.

Small businesses, the president said, keep one third of the republic’s livestock using 15 percent of the plough land. Every fourth resident in the republic lives in a rural territory. Over 28 thousand farming entities are active, 24 thousand set up within the self-employment programme. The space cultivated by the entities totals 499.7 thousand hectares.

The consumer cooperatives network continues to be formed. A total of 145 cooperatives have so far been set up, 39 of them of the credit, 20 processing, and 86 of the sales and procurement types. Their loan portfolio totals over 250 million roubles.

Tatarstan has adopted a dairy farming development programme. A total of 60 farms are operating at the moment, the number to go up to 1,000 in the next 2-3 years.

“Land needs devoted owners, which our farmers are,” Kamiyar Baitemirov concluded.

President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov greeted the meeting on the farming movement 20th anniversary. “The village in the republic has been given strong momentum. The self-employment programme has allowed over 25 thousand villagers receive subsidies and start uph own businesses,” he said.

R. Minnihkanov pledged support for the agricultural producers whatever the market situation.

“Let this year bring us good luck,” he said.