AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

The next step in agricultural reforms has begun in Azerbaijan. The main goal of these reforms is the streamlining of production and logistics systems, as well as the introduction of a new electronic management system for the agricultural system. The step-by-step solution of these tasks is laid out in the Ministry of Agriculture's plan "Development Strategy for Azerbaijan's Agriculture until 2020." The creation of new production facilities - agricultural parks - has been named the most important component of this strategy. 

"The development strategy plan worked out by the Ministry of Agriculture lays out, first of all, the fine-tuning of agricultural production facilities and the sector's management systems," announced the Presidential Administration's Agricultural Deve-lopment Department head Azar Amiraslanov. "Separate axes of development have been called on to provide for the progress of agricultural science, to create a system of electronic agriculture, and to streamline the subsidy system, to expand cooperation and agricultural insurance, to create favourable conditions for the attraction of new investments and new technologies for the industry, and, of course, to introduce new forms of production, particularly ones like agricultural parks."

Therefore one of the key goals in the Ministry of Agriculture's new strategy is the formation of various specialized agricultural parks in Azerbaijan. A similar form of orga-nization for agricultural production and wholesale distribution is fairly widespread in developed countries. These modern agricultural hubs are a universal platform, the nucleus of which is a large logistics zone consisting of vegetable storehouses and reserves, some of them refrigerated. Often those hubs also feature multi-faceted bases for small-scale wholesale and retail trade, exhibition pavilions, venues for business negotiations, hotels, and even centres for the servicing of agricultural equipment. The main consumers of the products and services of the agricultural park are major retailers, as well as food industry establishments and supermarkets. The share of this market segment for the countries of Europe and America reaches fifty per cent.

At the same time agricultural parks combining the above-mentioned functions with production processes have become widespread in recent years. These facilities are a large agricultural territory with livestock farms, poultry farms, grain silos, a mechanized park, apiaries, a dairy farm, slaughter house, orchards, etc., each sector of production interconnected with the others and the logical continuation of another. Among other things, such agricultural parks also contain facilities for the processing and packaging of foods, workshops for the production of feed or the processing of organic fertilizers.

The primary advantage of this type of agricultural park is the creation of closed infrastructure, joining several links in the chain of agricultural production. For example, the emissions of the processing lines or flour-production facilities go toward the production of feed; the manure from livestock farms is used as raw material for the production of biological fertilizers (compost) or the manufacture of biogas, etc. The formation of similar agricultural production clusters will save significant costs in the creation of infrastructure and its maintenance in working condition, reducing expenditures on transport as well. The diligent usage of plant-growing products and other raw materials, as well as developed secondary processing makes the work of agricultural parks nearly waste-free, and, therefore, more profitable. Finally, this localization of production processes will enable the more efficient use of specialists' capabilities, streamline the introduction of developments in modern agricultural science and high-tech equipment.

Such a form of agricultural production is comparatively new in the post-Soviet Union, and in Russia and Kazakhstan they are only now beginning to take the first steps toward the implementation of such projects. Azerbaijan was one of the first in the Caspian region to begin forming agricultural parks. During his trip to the Samkir District Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev took part in the foundation-laying of the Samkir Agricultural Park. The 543-hectare, multi-sector enterprise will include a modern greenhouse complex, facilities for the production of seedlings and trees to be transplanted for the organization of intensive orchard-growing. It also hosts a facility for the processing of fruits and vegetables, a factory for the production of packing material, logistics and agricultural service centres, a refrigerated warehouse, sales centres, an auto park, a scientific research and innovation centre, a hotel, and a number of support facilities. The new agricultural park will be made more effective by making proper use of irrigation: the water for the fields will be taken from the Sakircay reservoir. An 11-kilometer channel capable of transporting 4.5 cubic meters of water a second will stretch beside the agricultural park, with roughly one cubic meter of that water going towards the needs of the agricultural park, the remainder going to other farms in the region. The government's hand in the project is not limited to the creation of water infrastructure - a large part of the funds necessary for the construction of the facilities in the Samkir Agricultural Park will be provided by loans from the National Fund for the Support of Entrepreneurship.

According to Minister for Economics and Industry Sahin Mustafayev, the concept for the development of agricultural parks in the country provides for a single coordinated system in the area of agriculture, as well as the full integration of the actions of producers, processors, and consumers. The new form of localization for production will enable the growth of export potential and the widening of the geography of exports, the creation of national produce brands, widened access to agricultural innovations for small and mid-size farms, the wide usage of intensive farming methods, and, as a result, large harvests. Finally, agricultural parks will help to create jobs in the nation's provincial areas. There are also plans to set up business ties between the Samkir Agricultural Park and the Zayam Technology Park, which is also located in Samkir District; the ties would include the production and installation of hothouses and modern equipment for drip-irrigation. The new agricultural park will create conditions for consulting, technical, agricultural service and logistical services to the neighbouring regions, providing them with seeds, plantings, trees for transplantation, medicines, and fertilizers. The agricultural park's training and educational centre will provide farmers with training courses and seminars on agricultural techniques and soil care.

In the end, thanks to the concentration of production and processing, storage, transport logistics, as well as the implementation of modern technologies, the Samkir Agricultural Park will be host to a competitive production of produce and the efficient logistics for its delivery to the domestic market, in particular sales through green markets and farmer's stores. Lowered expenditures and increased profitability will help to set up large-scale export of the agricultural park's products.

The first steps have been taken for the formation of agricultural parks in Azerbaijan. Two ministries - the Ministry of Economics and Industry and the Ministry of Agriculture - are holding talks with the corresponding ministries of Poland and the Netherlands with the goal of implementing these countries' rich experience and bringing in modern technologies and investments for the formation of major agricultural complexes and agricultural parks. Together with the servicing and production agricultural parks, facilities with a research focus might also be formed in Azerbaijan. For example, the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences has already established the agricultural park Xizi, which will be built in the Xizi region by using the Angilan agricultural-production complex as its base. The primary purpose of this type of agricultural park will be scientific research in the regionalization of the most productive cultivars, as well as the development of effective agricultu-ral technologies.