Azerbaijan, Baku, July 2 / Trend A. Akhundov /
The average grain yield in Azerbaijan will exceed 27 centners per hectare by late 2012. This is confirmed by the results of the harvest, Azerbaijani deputy minister of agriculture Bahram Aliyev told Trend today.
"These are average indices," he said. "The yield in some areas of the country exceeds 60-70 centners / ha. This year's crop has grown."
He said that about 2.5 million tons of grain were collected in 2011. The Ministry of Agriculture expects to collect at least 2.7 million tons this year.
"According to the state program of providing the population with food products (for the period 2008-2015), Azerbaijan's need for grain till 2015, which is estimated at 3 million tons per year, must be completely covered by domestic production," he said. "Our main goal is to bring yield to 35 centners / ha."
He said that the Ministry of Agriculture intends to achieve this by increasing productivity through the introduction of new technologies, improving soil fertility and other measures, rather than by increasing the area under cultivation.
According to the State Statistics Committee, about 2.459 million tons of grain (by 22 percent or 458 tons more than in 2010) were produced in Azerbaijan in 2011 with yield of 25.4 centners per hectare. About 66.7 percent or 1.64 million tons of wheat have fallen to wheat.