Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order on extra support for agricultural producers.

The relevant document which was signed on June 4 envisages providing the agricultural producers with grain harvest combines.

Under the order, the Agrolizing Open Joint Stock Company has been allocated 15 million manats from the Azerbaijani President's Reserve Fund, as provided in the State Budget for 2014.

The Finance Ministry is tasked to provide the amount envisioned.

The agricultural sector is important not only for increasing Azerbaijan's export potential, but also for restoring and protecting the country's food security. Protecting the quality and price of food stuff produced in Azerbaijan and producing them in accordance with quality standards are among the top issues of the country's food security.

Azerbaijan is meeting the population's demands for meat products by 90 percent, poultry meat by 81 percent, eggs by 80 percent, dairy products by 75 percent, vegetable oil by 65 percent, and butter by 50 percent through local production.

As a result of the measures conducted in Azerbaijan to ensure food security, the production of husbandry goods has increased by 3.1 times, cattle-breeding by 3.4 times, meat production by 1.6 times, and grain production by 1.4 times in the past 10 years.

The production of Azerbaijan's agricultural goods amounted to 795.6 million manats in January-April 2014, which is 3.3 percent more compared to the same period last year.

Azerbaijan has allocated 20.15 million manats for farmers in the state budget of 2014. Agricultural subsidies have been granted in Azerbaijan since 2007.

Also, since the beginning of 2014, over 470 harvesters and other agricultural machinery have been imported to the country. All these machinery were produced in Europe.