BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

22/09/2007

Record 7,5-mln-t grain harvest gathered in Belarus

MINSK, September 22 (Itar-Tass) - A record grain harvest -- 7.5 million tonnes -- has been gathered in Belarus. It will ensure the country's food security, President Alexander Lukashenko believes.

"The god has saved us this year," he said. It was not easy, but a record harvest has been gathered. More grain than ever before in Belarus's history has been threshed, the president said at the Belarussian agrarian festival fair on Saturday.

Lukashenko described the achievement as a feat of agrarian workers.

The good results confirm that the agrarian sector development policy is right, he noted.

Foreign advisers' recommendations not to invest funds in the agrarian sector, but to use them to buy grain abroad were not followed. What would the country have if the advice had been heeded? In such case, Belarus would be confronted with problems more difficult than the energy ones, as the grain prices on world markets doubled as compared to last January, the president noted.

This year's total grain harvest in Belarus is a quarter more than last year and more than the harvest of 2004 (7,16 million tonnes) that was the best in seven years.

Source:

http://www.itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=11895900&PageNum=0

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