COVER THE NEEDS

Intensive reforms in the agricultural sector and the effective system of privileges and preferences over the past 10 years have allowed Azerbaijan to significantly increase the level of self-sufficiency in its own agricultural products. Thus, the output of meat, eggs, milk and dairy products, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, salt and sugar almost completely covers the needs of the country, and in some cases, even surpluses are produced. At the same time, there is a noticeable lag in a number of important positions of the food basket, where the most important point is grain. In this case, high hopes are pinned on large farms that already display good performance in terms of yield.

According to experts, for a thorough change in the agricultural sector it is necessary to achieve an effective combination of state support for farms, advanced technology and advanced management system, and carry out the necessary measures to increase the efficiency of the use of land suitable for agriculture, production of wheat, vegetables and fruits. These provisions were mentioned by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, according to whom agricultural production, domestic demand and exports should be one system.

In this regard, as noted above, a major role is to be played by large farms actively created in recent years. The process of organizing and creating new large rural enterprises was laid by the president of Azerbaijan back in 2011. Analysis has shown that small enterprises are inefficient and unprofitable and have low productivity.

For example, according to the latest data, grain yield in large farms is twice as high as the average yield - 55 quintals. "The initial stage covered sown areas of 4,800 hectares. As part of ongoing projects, large farms will operate on 30,000 hectares," said President Ilham Aliyev. In any case, it is not so difficult to expand their area due to the construction of the Taxtakorpu and Samkircay reservoirs, which will make it possible to include tens of thousands of hectares of land in the turnover.

According to Minister of Economy and Industry Sahin Mustafayev, a master plan is currently being developed for the establishment of agro-parks in Xizi District, while agricultural complexes are also being created in Barda and Xacmaz. Overall, in 2015, 19 large farms will be operating in an area of more than 30,000 hectares in 12 districts of the country, and 47m manats have already been allocated for this purpose in soft loans through the National Fund to Support Entrepreneurship (NFSE). These farms will be aimed at increasing the production of food grains, cotton and animal products. The activities of such large-scale agricultural farms will help to use crop rotations, make efficient use of available land and water resources, and increase the yield of grain and cotton. It may be noted here that within the framework of direct support for the development of crop production in 2014, aid in the amount of 20.1m manats was rendered for planting wheat and rice and 51.8m manats for fuel and motor oil, which was spent on the cultivation of sown areas and perennials.

One of these large farms has been created in the remote village of Olcalar in Imisli District. This diversified farm is focused on the production of food grains, cotton and livestock products. Here, office buildings and accommodation for 70 farm workers was built in a short time, plants for irrigation were imported, a tractor, combine harvesters and other agricultural equipment was purchased. The total area of the farm is 3,800 hectares. The new farm located on the plain of the Mil steppe was founded on pastures on which land reclamation work was carried out, and winter crops were sown in these areas in the autumn of last year. An area of 452 hectares was allocated for food grain, while 848 hectares were sown with barley. "We carried out farming measures in time, and an area of 1,250 hectares of land is being ploughed where seeds of promising varieties of cotton will be sown this spring," the head of the new farm, Hasim Camalov, told R+ this spring.

He noted that at the initial stage the NFSE allocated a soft loan in the amount of 5m manats to the farm. The new enterprise already has dozens of workers, and with the development and empowerment of the enterprise new jobs will be created.

Neighbouring Saatli District is also creating a similar farm. "The MKT company has acquired a land plot of 4,015 hectares," the deputy head of the district executive authorities for agrarian affairs, Aga Asadov, told R+. "3,331 hectares of this amount of land were put into agricultural use by the decision of the prime minister of Azerbaijan. LLC Agro was given 1,600 hectares, and land reclamation work is under way here."

Along with this, the government is also intensifying work to create infrastructure for the procurement, storage and sale of products. In recent years, 48 logistics centres with a capacity of 290,000 tonnes were opened in 26 districts and 22 grain storage complexes with a capacity of 340,000 tonnes in 14 districts. "In addition, the construction of a logistics centre in the Kazakh city of Aktau will be completed this year. The prospects for the future establishment of such centres in other countries are being studied. These centres will have a positive impact on the geographical expansion of the country's exports and export growth," Minister of Economic Development Sahin Mustafayev said.

We should add that President Aliyev emphasized the need to encourage the country's export potential in agriculture. "Now we have export potential, so a system of encouragement should be created. I instruct the Ministry of Economy and Industry to develop such a mechanism. In the near future, we will discuss it. This will allow businesses to be more interested in supplying their products abroad. Thus, additional benefits will be introduced for them," said President Ilham Aliyev.

In short, the government is ready to create favourable conditions for farmers to organize the production of important agricultural products and to store and distribute them. That is to say maximum measures are being taken in order to make the risky business of agricultural production attractive to rural residents.