31 July 2008
Belarus will not have to import feed grain this year, deputy minister says

Belarus will not have to buy feed grain from foreign suppliers this year as the crop yield is expected to be high in the country, Nadzezhda Katkavets, first deputy minister of agriculture, said at a news conference in Minsk on Thursday.

At least eight million tons of the crop is projected to be harvested in Belarus this year, with 4.5 million to be supplied to domestic poultry and cattle farms.

The deputy minister said that the grain would be available at "reasonable prices."

She said that the country would however import 100,000 to 150,000 tons of durum wheat for the domestic bakery industry and some feed crops as previously. "But this will anyway be 10 times less than we imported five or six years ago," she stressed.

Imports of protein material are expected to be cut as well. Some 560,000 tons of rape crops have already been gathered in Belarus and 40,000 tons are expected to be harvested more compared with only 200,000 tons harvested in 2007, according to Ms. Katkavets.

Areas sown to soybean have been increased to 3,500 hectares this year from 1,000 hectares in 2007, when 17,000 tons of the bean was gathered per one hectare, with the highest per-hectare yield reported at 27,000 tons.

Ms. Katkavets said that there were plans to increase soybean lands to 10,000 hectares in the next couple of years. //BelaPAN