OREANDA-NEWS. March 21, 2011. This year the nationwide harvest of grain crops is projected at 9.9 million tonnes in Belarus, Minister of Agriculture and Food Mikhail Rusyi told a press conference.

The minister noted that with the harvest like this, Belarus will be self-sufficient in grain and will be able to export some of it.

Mikhail Rusyi stressed that this year the country looks set to harvest more winter and spring wheat and corn in order to meet fodder needs of the poultry and pig ubdustry. Therefore, the area under these crops will be expanded. The minister recalled that last year the nationwide harvest was about 1 million tonnes of wheat, and this year the plans are to harvest 450,000 tonnes more in addition to that amount in order to provide fodder to the domestic pig and poultry industries. This year the target is to harvest 1 million tonnes of corn from the area of about 840,000 hectares (in 2010 the harvest was approximately 770,000 tonnes).

The minister noted that winter crops were planted in time last year. “The loss of these crops after winter is within acceptable norms,” he added. Across some positions they reach 10%.

In 2011, farms of all categories are expected to harvest more than 7.5 million tonnes of potatoes, 4.2 million tonnes of sugar beets, about 60,000 tonnes of flax, up to 890,000 tonnes of rape seed and more than 2 million tonnes of vegetables. There is a need to stock more than 7 million tonnes of forage grass fodder.

The spring sowing and harvesting campaigns will require about Br4 trillion this year. Sowing of summer grain crops is expected to be completed by 1 May, potatoes and flax by 5 May.