Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct.17
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
The volume of agricultural production in Azerbaijan exceeded 4.308 billion AZN in current prices in January-September 2014, or 3.7 percent less compared to the same period of 2013, the country's State Statistical Committee said in its report for the first nine months of 2014.
The report said that the volume of livestock production increased by three percent, while crop production saw a 9 percent decrease during the reporting period.
Crop was harvested from 1,183,700 hectares of area in Azerbaijan as of Oct.1, 2014.
Around 985,200 hectares of these sown areas accounted for cereals and legumes (99.1 percent of the total sown area allotted for this crop), 1,100 hectares - tobacco, 22,900 hectares - cotton, 61,000 hectares (98.9 percent) - potatoes, 74,300 hectares (97.8 percent) - vegetables, 28,000 hectares - melons, as well as 11,100 hectares - feed sunflower (95.3 percent).
The country produced 2.178 million metric tons of grain (excluding corn) during the reporting period. On average, around 22.8 quintals of grain was collected per hectare.
Taking into account the collected corn, grain production exceeded 2.338 million metric tons in January-September 2014.
The farms produced 1.125 million metric tons of vegetables, 808,900 metric tons of potatoes, 439,900 metric tons of melons, 532,400 metric tons of fruits and berries, 106,100 metric tons of grapes, 29,100 metric tons of sugar beet, 404.2 metric tons of tea leaves, 19,800 metric tons of feed sunflower and 2,200 metric tons of tobacco leaves.
Grape production increased by 1.7 percent, feed sunflower - 11.8 percent, melons - 2.9 percent, fruits and berries - 0.4 percent, while the production of tea leaves dropped by 14.8 percent, tobacco - 16.2 percent, sugar beet - 16 percent, potato - 17.8 percent and vegetables - 1.1 percent.
The country produced around 324,900 metric tons of meat in live weight, over 1.416 million metric tons of milk, over 1.164 billion eggs and 16.3 metric tons of wool during the reporting period.
Meat production has increased by 1.5 percent, milk - 3.6 percent, eggs - 11.6 percent and wool - 1.5 percent compared to Jan.-Sept. 2013.
The official exchange rate on Oct. 17 is 0.7843 AZN/USD.