A total of 4.8 million ha of land is available for agricultural purposes in
Following the announcement, deputy Minister for Agriculture Jahan Mammadov told a press conference on June 22 that in addition to about 3.7 million private landowners, there are 2,654 farming economies, 164 cooperative units and 388 collective unions active in the field of
agriculture.
He went on to say that the agricultural sector had generated 14 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product in 2004. “There is a year-on-year increase of the share of domestic production. Over the past four years, the amount of cereals’ harvest has increased to 2 million tons, with the production of vegetables and potato increasing 8.5 and 6 times, respectively,” he noted.
Meanwhile, Mammadov stressed on the lack of processing facilities in the country’s rapidly growing capital city, Baku, as well as lagging regions. “We think the main objective, to be achieved, is to build up a network of processing facilities to increase domestic production of poultry, dairy and other products,” he concluded.