Farms in the Mogilev and Vitebsk regions are leading in the pace of winter sowing

September 20, Minsk / Tatyana Lobas - BELTA /. In Belarus, farms in the Mogilev and Vitebsk regions are leading in the pace of winter crop sowing, having sown 79% and 70.3% of the planned area, respectively, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food told a BELTA correspondent. The high pace of work is due to the fact that the northern regions were the first in the republic to start autumn sowing. In the Grodno region, 71.5% has been sown, in the Gomel region - 71%, in the Minsk and Brest regions - 55% and 54.4%, respectively. In general, across the republic, winter grains have been sown on 956.5 thousand hectares, which is 67.8% of the planned area. The winter crop acreage this year should be 1 million 410.7 thousand hectares. As noted in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food, this year the pace of winter grain sowing in all regions is ahead of last year's, but it needs to be accelerated. The task is to complete the sowing of winter crops within the optimal deadlines: in the northern regions - by September 25, and in the rest - by September 30. For this purpose, the soil is being actively prepared: 1 million 233.6 thousand hectares have already been prepared, which is 87.4% of the plan. Farms in the Mogilev region are leading in this, with 98.5% of the areas prepared. Across the country, about 2.3 thousand high-power tractors are involved in soil preparation for winter grain sowing, or 91.2% of their availability. About half of them are working in two shifts. -0-