About 1.5 thousand specialists from cities and districts of the Vitebsk region are helping farmers with the harvest

July 27, Vitebsk /Sergey Kochetov - BELTA/. About 1.5 thousand employees of enterprises and organizations from cities and district centers of the Vitebsk region are assisting agricultural producers in harvesting, the Agriculture and Food Committee of the regional executive committee informed a BELTA correspondent.

Mainly, urban specialists work as machine operators on grain harvesting combines, and are also involved in transporting grain and performing other agricultural work (plowing stubble, land maintenance).

In accordance with the decision of the regional executive committee, over 1.1 thousand units of vehicles have also been dispatched to assist agricultural organizations. The equipment is mainly used for transporting grain from fields to grain drying complexes, and then to grain processing plants. To ensure optimal harvesting rates, the farms' need for vehicles has been fully met, the committee noted.

During the harvesting campaign in the region, about 800 grain drying complexes of various types are involved, including about 100 high-performance domestic grain dryers with an operational life of no more than 5 years. To optimize and increase the efficiency of using the complexes for processing and drying the harvest, over 50 inter-farm points with grain dryers have been established in the districts, where it is planned to dry over 45 thousand tons of grain and rapeseed oilseeds for state needs. In addition, the grain drying complexes of grain processing plants provide significant assistance to agricultural enterprises in grain preparation. In total, the grain drying facilities of procurement organizations include almost 40 complexes, where about 450-500 thousand tons of grain are dried annually during the harvesting campaign.

As of July 27, grain and leguminous crops have been mowed on an area of almost 84 thousand hectares in the region, or 18.5% of the areas to be harvested. About 262 thousand tons of grain have been threshed with an average yield of 31.2 centners per hectare. Winter rapeseed has been harvested from an area of 14 thousand hectares, with 18.2 thousand tons threshed, and the average yield is 13.1 centners per hectare.-0-