Field kitchen lunch, or How Vitebsk region's grain growers eat

Regional committees of industry trade unions are assigned to the districts. Their representatives will visit all agricultural enterprises to not only monitor the progress of field work and resolve related issues, but also to help if necessary. By August 25, trade unions must be, as they say, in combat readiness and on round-the-clock mobile communication, emphasized the head of the VROO.

Dry rations are unacceptable in terms of nutrition, and the prices for lunches, taking into account the economic situation in each of the districts and agricultural enterprises, should be minimized. The Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus is ready to assist in this in the Vitebsk region by involving four of its health resorts located in the Braslav, Gorodok, Orsha, and Ushachi districts. The FTUB will also help in acquiring two boilers for the most needy farms to equip showers in the mechanical workshops.

Special attention is paid to the fulfillment of the requirements of Directive No. 1. The duties of the trade union activists include monitoring the provision of participants in the most important agricultural campaign with workwear and footwear, personal protective equipment and first-aid kits, conducting timely labor protection briefings, pre-trip medical examinations of machine operators, and organizing emergency medical care.

The chief technical labor inspector of the regional committee of the agro-industrial complex workers' trade union, Mikhail Lobko, has been instructed to jointly with the state labor inspectorate, labor protection specialists of the departments of agriculture and food, check compliance with the norms of safe working conditions. This means preventing the operation of machines and mechanisms that do not meet safety requirements and have not passed technical inspection, suspending their operation in case of a threat to people's lives and health, removing participants from the harvest from work with the оформление of relevant documents in case of violation of labor and production discipline. The absence of such cases and injuries is a common condition when determining the winners of the competition.

Viktor Gutorov, Chairman of the regional trade union committee of agricultural workers, noted that although the readiness of combine harvesters for field work in the region is 89%, and in Rossony and Gorodok districts it is only 71%, the harvest must be carried out with high quality. 53 farms in the region are obliged to eliminate wage arrears for June.

To assist social partners in harvesting crops within optimal deadlines, achieving high productivity and quality of labor, the presidium of the regional trade union committee of agricultural workers will ensure the awarding of harvest leaders in the Vitebsk region with letters of appreciation, bonuses, gifts, and souvenirs. Currently, Orsha, Verkhnedvinsk, and Dubrovno districts are leading in grain yield.

Combine Harvester Operators Will Be Cared For

The efficiency and mood of the participants in the harvest campaign largely depend on the cooks who provide the machine operators with lunches. They get up as early as the combine harvester operators to prepare and deliver hot meals to the field by noon.

In the kitchen of the cafe of OJSC "Rudakovo" in the Vitebsk region, reliable rear support is guaranteed by highly professional specialists Marina Zubova, Elena Gerasimenkova, Natalia Obukhova, and Lyubov Kuznetsova.

As Zinaida Kolesnikova, head of the farm's hotel complex, said, during the harvest, cooks switch to extended working hours. Currently, 26 lunches are prepared for the machine operators involved in the harvest, but at the peak of the season, their number will reach six dozen. Double portions of first and second courses are packed into individual thermos containers, which keep the food warm even to the farthest field.

A varied menu is developed a week in advance. On the day of our visit, machine operators were offered pasta soup (500 g), rice porridge (200 g), poultry rolls (200 g), and fried pork (100 g). Plus cucumbers and tomatoes from their own greenhouse, wafer bars, mineral water, or lemonade. The cost of lunches at OJSC "Rudakovo" is 10-11 rubles. However, harvest participants pay only 24%, with the main amount covered by the farm.

Meanwhile, the harvest at the agricultural enterprise is gaining momentum. According to Denis Tereshkov, Deputy Director of OJSC "Rudakovo" for Crop Production and Mechanization, a total of 1900 hectares of grain and leguminous crops are to be threshed. It is expected that the planned yield of 45 centners per hectare will be exceeded. 11 harvesters are involved in the harvest, including two new KZS-1218s, which arrived this year. Depending on the weather, they thresh 300-500 tons of grain daily. Igor Masalov and Nikolai Shushkevich are working on the "Lida" harvesters, with whom, along with the distributors, we brought lunch to the field. During the harvest period, "Rudakovo" combine operators can earn about 1.5 thousand rubles.

Sergey LYASHUK, Galina SHPAKOVSKAYA. Photo by Anton STEPANISHCHEV. "Vitebskiye vesti".