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Krasnoyarsk territory changes approach to funding of regional agriculture

In his words, Russia’s accession to the WTO dictates new terms of work

KRASNOYARSK, March 23 (Itar-Tass) —— The Krasnoyarsk territorial authorities have decided to change cardinally the approaches to the financing of the regional agriculture. From now on, the regional budget will assign subsidies for the guaranteed improvement of products’ quality and their competitiveness, instead of the production growth.

The Regional Agriculture Ministry believes that such an approach will make it possible to curb the level of purchase prices in the agricultural sector.

The regional farmers will receive assistance only for the decline of spending for production, Regional Minister of Agriculture and Food Policy Leonid Shorokhov said on the sidelines of the Krasnoyarsk Trade Forum on Friday.

In his words, Russia’s accession to the WTO dictates new terms of work.

“The governor instructed the ministry to work out a mechanism of aid to the agricultural sector in order to raise its competitiveness. They will create the basis of the agricultural development program for the period from 2013 to 2020,” Shorokhov said.

“We are not going to support the hike of amounts. We are not interested in the production for the sake of production. We are aimed at the better quality,” he said.

“Now, about 60 percent of our food is related to the WTO ‘yellow basket,’ or supported by direct subsidies,” the minister said.

In his words, such a policy in the region triggered the growth of purchase prices, which have already reached the European level. For instance, prices of cultured milk food are 50 percent more than in Italy.

“With this in mind, we will focus on the development of technologies, improvement of quality and decline of energy spending,” Shorokhov said.

Besides, the ministry plans to launch new investment projects in the territory, which will make it possible to settle the grain surplus problem. For instance, the region plans to commission a large pig farming facility and to upgrade poultry farms, which should raise the regional grain consumption by 400,000 tonnes by 2017.