Farmers to be provided with corn seed, diesel

At least 170,000 peasant farms will be provided this spring with corn seed and diesel oil, a joint effort of the Government and the donor community, said Anatolie Gorodenco, Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry. According to him, this will be the first set of measures of the National Strategy for Sustainable Agrindustrial Development covering 2008-2015 to be implemented this year in an effort to alleviate the effects of last summer’s drought. Another measure of the Government will be the implementation of the Agriculture Subsidisation Concept, which centres on technical modernisation. Agriculture subsidies, according to the Concept, will rise this year to 270 million lei, from 240 million lei in 2007. In addition, the Government plans to start implementing the Strategy’s provision according to which the irrigated area will be expanded to 500-600 hectares by 2020. The currently irrigated area of 32.400 hectares will be expanded by about 10,000 hectares each year.