Grain growers of Turkmenistan have achieved remarkable success, having produced more than one million tons of wheat.The achievement is an important step towards hitting the key target to gather an abundant wheat harvest without grain loss.
The rapid development of agriculture is an essential aspect of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s policy.Wide-ranging reforms well under way in the sector are aimed at tackling issues of import substitution and enhancing the country’s export potential through the increase in volume of agricultural production.
The agricultural sector receives considerable assistance and generous financial support from the government.Massive investment is being made in the modernization of its infrastructure, including construction of modern agro-processing enterprises, grain elevators, milling complexes with seed grain handling facilities, and mineral fertilizer production plants.
Substantial funds are being allocated for irrigation, farmland improvement, and farm machinery renewal.Particular focus is on higher farming standards, the application of advanced agricultural technologies, development of seed farming, science and selective breeding.
Special efforts are being made to enhance agricultural management, diversification and restructuring as well as to ensure sustainable use of land and water resources, and environmental protection.Much of the impetus and motivation for agricultural producers comes from state subsidies and tax concessions; in particular, they benefit from minimum land rental charges and enjoy complete exemption from taxes.
In the context of the financial-economic mechanisms of the agricultural reform, special mention must be made of concessional loans offered to daikhan associations, farmers, agricultural joint-stock companies, tenant farmers, private entrepreneurs for buying agricultural equipment and financing agricultural production.
Large investment projects, aimed to make a change for the better in rural areas, are well underway countrywide as part of the National Program for improving social conditions of the population of villages, settlements, etrap towns and etrap centers until 2020, the General Program for supplying clean drinking water to cities and towns of Turkmenistan, and other large-scale socio-economic programs.
Turkmenistan has been exporting surplus wheat for several years now.This is particularly important for the country’s progressive development and on the whole, serves to effectively illustrate that the tasks for ensuring an abundance of food products in the country (meeting in full the domestic demand for food grain) are being tackled successfully.
The harvest campaign is still in progress with thousands of tons of wheat daily delivered to the designated centers.Farmers are determined to gather in every single grain of wheat and fulfill their contractual obligations and production plans.
With the total area of 760, 000 hectares under wheat countrywide this year, most of the fields were planted with high-yielding varieties of wheat, such as Sahrai, Juvan, Bitarap, Eloten-1, Eloten-3, Turkmenbashi-1, Gyzylshaglavuk-25, Miras, Akbash, Irishka, Yubileynaya-100, Batko and Krupinka, which are well adapted to the soil and climatic conditions of Turkmenistan.
At the height of the harvest season-2018, a total of 1,700 combine harvesters were working in the fields across the country with scores of new high-performance John Deere W540 and CLASS TUCANO430 harvesters purchased from the world-known manufacturers to assist farmers and combine operators in the regions.
More than 8, 700 trucks (including vehicles owned by the Ministry of Motor Transport, other ministries and sectoral agencies, and private enterprises) are promptly delivering wheat to the grain centers and grain storage facilities.