Thursday, 10 April 2014
Government helps frost-hit farmers Land users will be provided with seeds of various crops, reduced land tax and water charges
At today’s meeting, the Government admitted that the frost which came in the period from March 30 to April 1, 2014, has caused catastrophic losses to a number of communities, creating an emergency situation. To mitigate the damage, there is an urgent need to purchase seeds from farms engaged in the sale of agricultural seeds, and allocate to regional administrations to provide land users with the most affected communities. To purchase seeds, the Agriculture Minister was authorized to use AMD85million from the trust account of Seeds Agency SNCO.
Through the same SNCO the seeds will be provided to the administrations Aragatsotn, Ararat, Armavir, Lori, Vayots Dzor and Tavush provinces, which within 10 days through community leaders will give seeds to land users in accordance with the distribution list.
To mitigate the damage, the Government passed another decree stating that the cost of winter barley distributed under the program of development of production of barley, corn, alfalfa and sainfoin for spring planting in 2014 will be AMD130 instead of AMD200. In addition, no quota will be applied to the sales of nitrogen fertilizers and diesel fuel for frost-hit land users and will be based on the amount of actually available land area.
Another decree was adopted to allocate the affected regional administrations AMD271million so that they could settle the annual amounts of land tax and community budget contributions on behalf of those individuals and legal entities suffered from the national disaster.
In addition, to compensate the 2014 irrigation water fees for natural and legal persons, the State Water Committee was allocated 487 million drams. The State aid will create favorable conditions for further effective use of land, increase agricultural production and farm income in the affected communities.
Deputy Prime Minister, Acting Minister of Territorial Administration Armen Gevorgyan who chaired the Cabinet sitting noted that the assistance to affected land users will be continued through the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs and gave the floor to the acting Minister. The latter reminded that 630 peasant farms affected by hail in Armavir Marz last year were assisted to the amount of about 120 million drams. Those affected by the recent frost will be assisted to a total amount of 150-200 million drams. A draft government decree is already out for the Government’s consideration in the near future.
