Transnistrian farmers face sowing season crisis

The decreased soil humidity and lack of seeds hinders the start of the autumn sowing season on the left bank of the Nistru, says the “Novyi Region” News Agency, cited by Info-Prim Neo. There are only two weeks until the start of the autumn wheat sowing campaign, and until the sowing of canola – 10 days, but the decreased humidity will not allow starting the works in time. According to specialist from the Dubasari Hydro-electric Plant, soil humidity is at 24 mm, which is insufficient for sowing. Vyatcheslav Lyubinskiy, head of the so-called Households Department of the region, stated that in the extreme weather conditions of this year the crops were very poor and agricultural producers have insufficient seeds for starting the autumn sowing season. Experts from the region have proposed to create a network of seed collection and processing units, different from the one inherited from the Soviet period. Moreover, the experts say, the independent units may have moderation attributions among farmers and bread baking factories. Previous experiences show that cereal buyers often impose their personal evaluation of the agricultural products, which is most often incompetent, thus pursuing a decrease in the cereals’ price, which ultimately disadvantages the farmers.