Azerbaijan, Baku, June 21 / Trend, U. Ismayilova /
In 2010, Azerbaijan expects decrease in the amount of grain production, the Azerbaijani Agriculture Minister Ismet Abbasov said today.
"This year, the country will produce approximately 500,000 tons of grain, which is less than in 2009," the minister said.
He said, the main reasons for decline in grain production are the reduction of cultivated area (in the past year cultivated area totalled 148,000 hectares), as well as bad weather conditions.
The Minister called the current year as unfavourable for the sphere of agriculture due to bad weather conditions, and said that, despite this, the entire produced crop will be collected and processed, and in case of necessity the import of products will be continued.
"In any case, the problem regarding grain shortage is not expected, since the record amount of grain was collected in 2009, also crops remained from last year," the minister said.
According to the State Statistics Committee of Azerbaijan in January-May grain was collected from the territory of 1,800 hectares (22.3 quintals per hectare), as a result of which in total 4,000 tons of grain were collected compared to 17,900 tons of grain collected from territory of 8,600 hectares during the same period of 2009.