In the Vitebsk region, over 80% of tractors are ready for the spring sowing campaign
In the Vitebsk region, over 80% of tractors are ready for the spring sowing campaign. This was announced to journalists before the meeting of the Vitebsk Regional Executive Committee by Ivan Fyodorov, Chairman of the Committee for Agriculture and Food.
The Chairman of the Committee emphasized that farms should intensify their work on preparing equipment. As of February 20, the readiness of tractors and agricultural machinery in the region as a whole is over 80%. At the same time, the situation varies by district, and some need to significantly speed up their work.
"Seed funds are ready, mineral fertilizers are being accumulated, and compared to last year, we have stocked twice as much of them by this date. We are also accumulating fuel and lubricants. One of the problems is the shortage of machine operators. We will solve it by attracting specialists from industrial enterprises in cities and district centers. We need to staff the farms so that during the peak of the sowing campaign, we can organize the operation of machinery in two or three shifts," said Ivan Fyodorov.
He noted that the main task for farmers is to carry out the sowing campaign in the shortest possible time at a high technological level. Given that the region carried out a significant amount of plowing work in the autumn (almost 300 thousand hectares of arable land were plowed), spring soil preparation should not be delayed. The goal is to complete the work in two weeks. And this is a feasible task, believes the Chairman of the Committee. This year, the region will continue to update its fleet of agricultural machinery. Deliveries are planned at the level of 2017.
"Last year we purchased more than 1.2 thousand units of equipment. Similar volumes are planned for 2018. Funds are allocated from the regional budget for these purposes, and purchases are also made at the expense of the own funds of agricultural organizations," said Ivan Fyodorov. The total sown area of the region this year will be 796 thousand hectares, of which 50% is planned to be sown with grain crops (about 400 thousand hectares), including 242 thousand hectares in the spring.