Azernews.Az

By Naila Huseynli

Five seed enterprises are planned to be built until 2020 in Azerbaijan. Two of these enterprises will be commissioned this year, and three of them the next year.

Ilham Guliyev, Deputy Minister of Agriculture made the remarks at a meeting held on the topic of “Registration of plant varieties in the Republic, the current state of seed production, problems and forthcoming tasks”.

The deputy minister reminded that in 2015 the State Seed Fund was established in Azerbaijan in order to provide producers with highly productive varieties of seeds and regulate activities in this direction.

During the meeting, the current state of seed production in the republic, the problems and future challenges, the development of seed production on a scientific basis, the application of innovative technologies in seed production, testing, conducted at points of varieties of plants and analysis of these results were discussed.

Guliyev said that a fund has been allocated for the vegetable seeds in accordance with the order of the President Ilham Aliyev. A large campus is laid on the base of the Institute of Vegetable-growing with this fund. Thus, the country will provide 100 percent domestic production of vegetable seeds.

Recently, the Agriculture Minister of Azerbaijan signed a protocol with Turkey in order to cooperate in the seed production. The goal of the bilateral agreement is to ensure efficiency and innovation in the agricultural sector.

In the next year Azerbaijan intends to provide itself with seeds of major grain crops. Thus, this year up to 100,000 high-quality cereal seeds are planned to be grown in Azerbaijan, whereas this figure was 80,000 in 2017.