Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 18
By Azad Hasanli - Trend:
The agricultural production volume in Azerbaijan in current prices amounted to 3.622 billion AZN in January-August 2014 or by 3.7 percent less compared to the same period of last year, the Azerbaijani State Statistics Committee's report says.
During this period, the livestock production increased by 2.8 percent, crop production - decreased by 9.2 percent, according to the report.
As of September 1, 2014, the harvest was collected at the area of 1.145 million hectares in Azerbaijan.
Around 967,200 hectares of these sown areas accounted for cereals and legumes (96.7 percent of the total sown area allotted for this crop), 1,100 hectares - tobacco, 22,900 hectares - cotton, 48,600 hectares (78.7 percent) - potatoes, 68,300 hectares (89.9 percent) - vegetables, 27,300 hectares (97.5 percent) - melons, as well as 9,100 hectares - feed sunflower (78.2 percent).
In particular, during the reporting period, the country produced 2,177 metric tons of grain (excluding maize). On average, around 22.8 quintals of grain was collected per hectare.
Taking into account the collected corn, grain production amounted to 2.238 million metric tons in January-August 2014.
The farms produced 980,600 metric tons of vegetables, 651,900 metric tons of potatoes, 410,400 metric tons of melons, 343,500 metric tons of fruits and berries, 37,100 metric tons of grapes, 316.7 metric tons of tea leaves, 17,000 metric tons of feed sunflower and 1,900 metric tons of tobacco leaves.
Grape production increased by 16.3 percent, feed sunflower - by 7.5 percent, melons - 3.1 percent, fruits and berries - by 0.9 percent, the production of tea leaves decreased by 20.7 percent, tobacco - by 14.6 percent, potatoes - by 11.5 percent and vegetable production - by 0.8 percent compared to the same period of last year.
Around 294,900 metric tons of meat in live weight, 1,249 metric tons of milk, 1.018 million eggs, 15.7 metric tons of wool was produced in the country during this period.
Meat production increased by 1.5 percent, milk - by 3.2 percent, eggs - by 11.3 percent, wool - by 2.2 percent in the country during this period of the year compared to January-August 2013.
The official exchange rate is 0.7844 AZN/USD on Sept. 18.