Points for grain cleaning created in Azerbaijan [PHOTO]

By Sara Israfilbayova

To ensure country’s population with qualitative grain, Azerbaijan’s Agriculture Ministry has purchased special equipment for grain cleaning.

The Economy Ministry reported that the equipment purchased under the project "Enhancing the competitiveness of agriculture" will be used at grain cleaning points at the Research Institute of Agriculture.

The points with a capacity of cleaning two tons of grain per hour  will also have equipment for weighing, sifting in size and shape, spraying machines and other equipment.

This equipment will allow to improve the work of the Research Institute of Agriculture, which is engaged in breeding new grain sorts, the ministry said, adding that the first clean-up point has already been established in Gobustan.

Six such points are planned to be created in the country.

The country provides itself with grain by about 65 percent. About 2.63 million tons of grain and leguminous crops were harvested from the area of 915,700 hectares (97.3 percent of the total sown area) in January-July 2017, the average yield amounted to 28.7 centners per hectare, according to Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee.

Azerbaijan, which is eager to diversify its oil-dependent economy, considers agriculture as one of the priority sectors.

The strategic road maps of the national economy of Azerbaijan were approved by the head of state in December, 2016. These documents cover the priority areas of the country's economy. One of the road maps is related to agriculture. In line with measures to be implemented in this field as reflected in this document in Azerbaijan until 2020 it is planned to create about 20,000 new jobs and increase the country's GDP by 1.2 billion manats ($705 million).

The main objectives of the road map are to strengthen the stability of food security, simplify access to financial resources, improve the quality of profile education, develop consulting and information services, simplify the entry of producers into markets, develop market infrastructure, improve the business climate in the agricultural sector and other issues.