Lukashenko: we can’t put up with the situation in animal husbandry; it’s necessary to increase responsibility for the results
The President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, is taking part today in the plenary session of the nationwide seminar dedicated to the development of animal husbandry in the Republic of Belarus, held in Soligorsk. Anticipating the discussion, the Head of State noted that nationwide seminars on the most pressing issues in certain areas of the economy have already become a good and useful tradition for us.
“Our current meeting is dedicated to an area that is important for the agro-industrial complex – animal husbandry – where many problems have accumulated,” Aleksandr Lukashenko noted. “We partially touched on this topic during our meetings with senior leadership from the Gomel and Grodno regions. Today we’ll talk about the problem on a nationwide scale: we’ll try to sum up the results, analyse mistakes, get acquainted with best practices and, I’m sure, find new areas for applying efforts to improve efficiency. We cannot continue to put up with the situation that is developing in our animal husbandry; we need to act, raising the responsibility of personnel for results and strengthening discipline. Livestock farming occupies a key position in the rural economy, producing more than half of all agricultural products, and our export potential is formed here.”
Speaking about the development of the industry, Aleksandr Lukashenko underlined that there are successes, “The level of self-sufficiency in milk exceeds 260 percent, in meat this figures is 130 percent. That is, we fully ensure our own food security, and sell the surplus on foreign markets. Last year, the country earned over $8bn from food, and in the eight months of this year – more than $4bn. At first glance, it’s a decent result but these are far from the numbers we can have. After all, the demand for food in the world, as you all know, is enormous, prices are rising and will continue to rise, and new markets are opening. That’s why sitting idle in such a unique situation is simply a crime.”
