Armenia held the first international forum of Armenian farmers in October. Attendants arrived from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Lebanon, Iran, Poland, Latvia, USA and France. Agriculture is a priority for the government. A recession was registered in 2010 equivalent to 14.5% due to climate problems.
Vaagn Khachatryan, an economic expert, says that the problem climate in 2010. Another problem is poor techniques of land exploitation. Machinery is old and lifetime expired long ago. Irrigation is also a topical issue, local administrations are unable to organize proper watering.
This year saw improvements. Armenia produced agricultural products worth 131.5 billion drams by August 2011 ($1 = 375 drams), exceeding the figures in the same period of 2010 by 62%. Growth is expected to reach 5.6% this year.
The government developed a concept for agricultural development. Armenian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Samvel Galstyan said that land shortages and recent climate problems were a major hardship for farmers. The government has been concentrating on development of villages and achieved progress.
Experts say that the main problem is to improve self-sufficiency of food production and making it rise from 60% to 80%. The country has over 300,000 minor agricultural economies, the government wants to merge them into larger ones. Privatization gave families 1-1.5 hectares of lands to harvest. Small land lots are inefficient. Minister Sergo Karapetyan says that the government will support merging of lands, especially in the Ararat Valley.
Former Prime Minister Grant Bagratyan says that agricultural output dropped by 15% in the last three years while the quantity of harvested lands doubled. Stress should be put on development of minor farming economies and giving farmers the right to purchase lands. A cooperation of agricultural mutual support should be established, he believes.
Some rural administrations disagree with the enlargement policy for lands. Head of the Agartsin Village of Tavush District, Sarkis Pogosyan, believes that realization of the idea would be a complicated task. For example, mountainous areas have specific landscape peculiarities. The village has 40 hectares of privatized lands split at a radius of 1.5-40 km. It is impossible to merge them.
Whether realization of the enlargement policy will pay off or not is a complicated question. It is obvious that Armenian monopolization of spheres is obvious in agriculture. Enlargement will have gradual reduction of the need for labour, which would complicate the employment problem, which is a pressing one in the country.
Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said in one of his latest speeches that the government will stress on development of agriculture, not opening of new workplaces. It is uncertain whether his words will be realized or not. Real state of affairs demonstrates rising poverty among farmers and their migration to cities. Former head of the Central Bank Bagrat Asatryan calls Armenian agriculture “a dead zone”, since it has not had any reforms in the last 20 years.
Author: Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for VK
