ArmInfo. The actual land users of 37 border villages of Armenia will receive state assistance during the autumn field work. The decision was taken at the November 29 meeting of the RA government.
According to the Acting Minister of Agriculture of Armenia Gegham Gevorkian, in fact, the matter concerns farmers in Tavush region, who will receive 60 thousand drams for working on one hectare of land. Currently, this provision applies to those individuals who possess the necessary certificates confirming land rights. However, de facto there are much more agricultural lands. In this regard, it is proposed to extend state assistance to all frontier lands, which will allow increasing the area of cultivated land, increasing the productivity of agricultural production. At the same time, the monitoring of the effectiveness of public resources used will be reduced from 10% to 3%, thereby, public funds will be saved. Gegham Gevorgyan stressed that this government initiative will be aimed at attracting an additional 900 beneficiaries to the program of three thousand who are already participating in it. In total, 150 million drams will be sent to solve the task. Thus, as the Acting Minister stressed, for land users of 37 border communities, equal conditions will be created to increase the level of use of crop land, use of uncultivated land, increase incomes of peasant farms.
Earlier, ArmInfo, citing Gegham Gevorgyan, reported that according to the agricultural production development strategy, by 2020 the area of cropland in Armenia will increase to 72% against 50% at present. In 2019, it is planned to increase by 4.5% the volume of agricultural production, bringing them by 2020 to 16%. At the same time, the livestock of small cattle is planned to increase from the current 55 thousand to 66 thousand, and large - from the current 15 thousand to 25 thousand. It is planned to carry out a lot of work in the direction of improving the efficiency of pastures, which, according to a point estimate, should increase from 15 points to 84 points.
The Acting Minister also said that the implementation of the program of subsidizing agricultural loans will continue. At the same time, the maximum loan size from the current 4.2 million drams is planned to increase to 5 million drams. Basically, small farms will be subsidized in order to bring them to the level of medium ones. In general, as of October of this year 16 billion drams loan portfolio has already been formed. The state will also assist those farmers who register in the state land registry. This assistance will be directed to those villagers who are really engaged in business. At the same time, the state will no longer assist agricultural enterprises in acquiring seeds, fertilizers and diesel fuel. Instead, a compensation system is introduced, which will be 60 thousand drams for each hectare of land.