BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 11
By Eldar Janashvili – Trend:
Azerbaijan’s Electronic Agriculture Information System (EAIS) has registered 22,670 beekeepers up to date, Trend reports citing the country’s Agriculture Ministry.
According to the ministry, 22,770 beekeepers account for 22,781 beekeeping farms and 23,052 bee families. A total of 506,944 beehives were registered throughout the country.
At the same time, the largest number of beekeeping farms and beehives were registered in Balakan district, which accounts for 1,104 beekeeping farms and 32,273 beehives.
“Zagatala district has the largest number of beekeepers - 1,349 beekeepers. Also, a significant number of beekeepers account for Aghsu, Tovuz, Lerik and Gakh districts,” said the ministry.
The most common bee breed is the Caucasian Bozdag breed. As many as 395,090 beehives belonging to bees of this breed are registered in the country, which makes up almost 78 percent of all hives.
In accordance with the subsidy rules approved subsidies in the amount of 10 manat ($5.8) are provided for each bee family by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan dated June 27, 2019.
Chairman of the Agrarian Credit and Development Agency Mirza Aliyev expressed confidence that the subsidies given to beekeepers will serve the development of this area and increase productivity.
“The new mechanism will allow us to choose regions that are interested in this area, but they have low productivity. This will allow developing projects to support the increasing of productivity in the future,” Aliyev said.
According to the subsidy mechanism to be applied from 2020, all subsidies provided to agricultural producers, including beekeepers, are gathered together in the EAIS. Beekeepers must enter information about their farms, the number of beehives, and the bee breed into the system. Registration of beekeepers in the system for receiving subsidies in 2020 ended on May 31.
(1 USD= 1.7 manat on June 11)
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