BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr.4
By Fidan Babayeva - Trend:
The full use of agricultural land in Azerbaijani territories, liberated from Armenian occupation (during the 44-day war from late Sept. through early Nov.2020), as the main means of production will have a significant impact on the country's agricultural sector, Head of Department at the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communication, Rashad Huseynov, told Trend this week.
According to Huseynov, preliminary calculations give grounds to say that the gross agricultural output in 2021 will grow by 8-10 percent compared to 2020.
Azerbaijan’s Agriculture Ministry has done huge work for digitalization of agricultural processes in the country, Shahin Huseynli, a specialist in geographic information systems, remote sensing and sustainable land management at the Azerbaijani office of German Corporation for International Cooperation GmbH (GIZ) said.
According to Huseynli, the creation of an electronic agricultural information system (EAIS) is a significant part of the work in this direction.
"According to the initial results of the ECOserve program’s implementation, within the framework of the program, work on improving the database of geographic information systems (GIS) is underway," he noted. "Improving the GIS database is a reference in carrying out activities on ‘smart’ and sustainable agriculture. As an example, the Ministry of Agriculture jointly with the German Space Agency, through the system, completed ‘Mapping scale and current state of meadow fields in Azerbaijan’ project in 2019."
"Since agriculture in Azerbaijan is a top priority at the state level, it’s important to conduct smart and sustainable agricultural work. We can observe how the potential expands over time," Huseynli said. The surveys and observations conducted by us both with the ministry representatives and with farmers within the ECOserve program show that interest in these areas is quite high."
"In this direction, we’ll be able to see a transition to sustainable agriculture in the near future, if the material-technical base is expanded and the process of training and awareness activities further accelerated," he concluded.
Besides, this week Azerbaijan’s participation in the FAO-Turkey Partnership Program (FTPP II) was announced, which will contribute to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) existing work in the country on agricultural productivity, rural development, and animal disease and pest control.
According to a source in FAO, the FTPP II has been further strengthened by the endorsement of four projects by Azerbaijan.
"This endorsement has brought FAO, Turkey and Azerbaijan even closer to their objective of ensuring food security, promoting rural development and managing natural resources in a sustainable manner," the source said.
"The projects funded by the Government of Turkey will support countries of Central Asia, Azerbaijan and Turkey by improving capacities in a variety of areas ranging from reduction of food loss and waste to ensuring sustainable fisheries and aquaculture management, combating wheat rust diseases and improving national food safety systems," added the source.
In the outgoing week, it was also reported that the biggest share of Azerbaijan's export from January through February 2021 accounted for fruits and vegetables, which made up $70.5 million.
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