ROBERT KOCHARIAN: THE STATE WILL INCREASINGLY GROW ITS INVESTMENTS IN AGRICULTURE

Noyan Tapan
Mar 07 2007

YEREVAN, MARCH 7, NOYAN TAPAN. During the March 7 meeting with heads of
over 20 farms, the Armenian President Robert Kocharian said that a hot
time is coming for agriculture, and now is the right moment to discuss
existing problems and to announce what steps are envisaged by the state
for agricultural development. The RA Minister of Agriculture Davit
Lokian spoke about results of fulfilling the president’s assignments
regarding the problems raised by farmers at the meeting held last
year. Particularly, the matter concerned agricultural crediting on
concessional terms, for which 22 mln USD has been allocated.

Out of this sum, 4.2 mln USD has already been distributed at 9-11%
interest rates. This year the OPEC Fund’s 10 million dollar credit
line will be opened and invested in infrastructure development. The
implementation of the pilot program developed based on European
model of agriculture subsidizing in several Armenian marzes,
which allowed to increase the area of cultivated lands by 28%, was
discussed at the meeting. The meeting participants also addressed
two big programs on agricultural development, which will enable to
replace the import of high-quality seeds and pure-bred animals with
their domestic production. The farmers expressed their gratitude
for the problems solved and spoke about new ones. They pointed out
the problem of training qualified staff in the agricultural sector,
as lack of such experts is felt. They also underlined the necessity
to increase the number of milk processing enterprises and to set up
mixed fodder producing enterprises in marzes, as well as to use target
subsidizing of the irrigation water tariff. R. Kocharian noted that
problems related to particular farms were often raised at previous
meetings, which has not happened recently. "It is gratifying that
general problems related to the whole sector are raised now, which
means that the number of artificially created obstacles has declined
and the system is developing, and you have begun to think about
improvement of the whole sector," he said. He stated that the state
will increasingly grow its investments in agriculture and it seeks the
most efficient ways to do so, while farmers are anticipated to provide
their assistance in this issue. According to the RA President’s press
service, at the beginning of the meeting, Robert Kocharian presented
Anania Shirakatsi medals to farmer Alexan Gabrielian (Shirak marz),
director of Artsrun & Sons LLC Artak Khachatrian (Gegharkunik marz)
and director general of Multi Agro scientific and production center
Roza Tsarukian (Kotayk marz). They were awarded these medals for
their distinguished activities in the economic sphere by the March
6 decree of the RA President.