THE YEAR OF AGRICULTURE

It is no accident that, on the instructions of President Ilham Aliyev, 2015 has been declared the Year of Agriculture. Although sufficiently large projects have been implemented over the last few years aimed at developing all directions in the agrarian sector, it is this year that is the 20th anniversary of the start of agrarian reforms in Azerbaijan initiated by the national leader Heydar Aliyev, to transform this branch of the economy, based on market relations principles. On the one hand, the time has come to sum up the results of the work that has been done over these years, and on the other, to give a spur to new beginnings capable of implementing the state's main aim, namely that of ensuring food security and a maximally self-sufficient country from the point of view of agricultural production.

The early years of the agrarian reforms were remembered for the difficult processes of sharing out the "collective" lands and for the complete dismay of the collective and state farmers engulfed in new opportunities and commitments, faced with a lack of good-quality equipment, financial resources and even a clear idea of how to run their own farms. But, over the last decade, the statistics for agriculture have started to look better and have even been improving, the plant-growing and animal husbandry sectors have been developing successfully, new industrial enterprises have been commissioned in the regions to process agricultural produce which is exported and enjoys high consumer demand.

Today, 37 per cent of the country's able-bodied population are employed in the agrarian sector, but its share of GDP is only slightly more than 5 per cent. At the present time, according to information from the international humanitarian organisation Oxfam, Azerbaijan's level of food self-sufficiency is 78 per cent, which indicates that serious progress has been made. Thus, whereas after the restoration of independence the degree of self-sufficiency in meat and dairy products in the country was approximately 30-35 per cent, now this figure is 92 per cent and 76 per cent respectively. Moreover, whereas earlier Azerbaijan had to satisfy its domestic needs by importing potatoes, today the country exports more than 50,000 tonnes of new potatoes annually. In 2014, the economy in the agrarian sector continued to develop at an increasingly rapid rate; in all sectors except for grain cultures, growth has been achieved in yields, and state programmes for animal husbandry, viticulture and tea are being successfully implemented.

As far as grain crops are concerned, intensive work is being done in this direction. In order for the country to be largely self-sufficient in wheat, efforts are being directed at setting up large-scale farms in the provinces. As President Ilham Aliyev noted not long ago, the productivity on such farms is double that of average productivity, namely 55 centners per hectare, while the figure is 23 centners throughout the country. "If we take into account that approximately 20 large-scale farms are in the process of being set up, then I feel certain that in the very near future we will be able to be completely self-sufficient in wheat," the head of state said.

Today work is under way in 12 of the republic's districts to set up 19 large-scale farms, for which more than 30,000 hectares of land have been allocated. This year new areas of land will already be sown to crops; on this land the soil has undergone ameliorative improvement, irrigation canals have been constructed, premises have been created to house new machines and equipment and mineral fertilizers, as well as warehouses and refrigerated stores for the fruit and vegetables; livestock farms have also been set up with housing constructed for the livestock-breeders.

Once the Samkir reservoir started operating, good conditions were created for sowing crops on tens of thousands of new hectares of land. A private pilot agricultural park has been set out in this district to deal with production matters, processing and the packing of agricultural produce, the rendering of logistical services and the marketing of the ready output on the domestic market as well as for export. A similar park is to be set up in Xizi District on the basis of the Samur-Abseron irrigation system.

A chain of enterprises has been set up to produce tinned foods and process fruit, vegetables and fish, with most of the enterprises located next to the source of the raw materials.

It should be noted that the possibilities for exporting produce have been increasing alongside the growth in production volumes: in 11 months of 2014 fruit exports grew by 12.5 per cent and vegetable exports by more than 28 per cent.

Not only in-depth reforms in agriculture are taking place in the country's regions, but villages are changing in appearance and good living conditions are being created for the rural population.

In 2015 it is planned to bore 300 artesian wells, and to construct integral water-purification units in 50 villages.

The building of roads in the countryside is very important, for which a large amount of financing has been allocated; this process is to continue this year. The process of gasification, the repairing and laying of electric power lines is ongoing.

One of the criteria for evaluating whether the agrarian sector's development is stable and consistent is also the share of the sector's additional contribution to GDP. Experts believe that the share of the agrarian sector in the GDP structure has been tending to decline. And this is typical of developed countries. The average world indicator is 4 per cent. In the USA, Japan, and the EU countries it is 2.1 per cent, in Kyrgyzstan - 33.6 per cent, in Uzbekistan - 29.4 per cent, in Georgia -13 per cent and in Azerbaijan 6.2 per cent.

In spite of the positive dynamics in production volumes in the agrarian sphere, growth is being provided as a result of extensive development factors. Thus, the villagers have expanded the area sown to grain crops, potatoes, melons and vegetables by drastically cutting down the areas sown to cotton, tobacco, grapes, tea, and fodder cultures. In other words, the structure of agricultural production has not been formed in a rational manner. In order to eliminate these circumstances, in April 2014 Azerbaijan's president instructed that a number of measures should be adopted to improve management of institutional reforms in the agrarian sector and speed them up.

Among them note should be taken of measures to set up district and urban directorates of the republic's Ministry of Agriculture, agricultural parks, systems of "e-government", to improve the structure of the Agrarian Science Centres and its research institutes, to upgrade the training of staff, to protect and boost the fertility of the soil, to promote the recovery of lands that have been subjected to salinization and erosion, to adopt the law "On cooperation in agriculture", which envisages economic incentives and the amalgamation of peasant farmers' small holdings into large-scale agricultural enterprises.

Besides this, projects have become firmly established and work has started on creating three distribution centres in Baku and on the Abseron peninsula, with a capacity of 110,000 tonnes each and the construction in them of a "fresh produce market" with working "farm shops" that will provide for the harvesting, storage, transportation, export and sale of agricultural produce. All these are being financed by concessionary loans.

In short, the agrarian sector in Azerbaijan has set out in the Year of Agriculture with a good baggage of achievements. At the same time, the list of work that lies ahead is impressive. For, in the final count, it is a question of the country's food security, the growth of food self-sufficiency, which is particularly important against the backdrop of the crisis phenomena occurring in the world economy. It is precisely a complex of measures and greater attention focussed on the agrarian sector that can facilitate the fulfilment of these tasks and promote the growth of agriculture's share in the country's GDP.