ArmInfo.Armenia is not threatened by hunger. On this October 19 at a press conference dedicated to the World Food Day, celebrated in the world on October 16, said Acting. Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Republic of Armenia Garnik Petrosyan.
According to him, in Armenia there is a problem of malnutrition by 6% of the population. The main reason for this, as noted by the Acting Deputy Minister, is the rather high level of the poor population, which according to the data for 2016 was 29.4%, and the extremely poor 1.8%. Garnik Petrosyan stressed that the republic is fully self-sufficient in fruits, vegetables and a number of other goods. At the same time, there is a group of problematic items of goods that the Ministry of Agriculture is addressing. This category, in particular, includes cereals, the production of which in Armenia is only 40-50%. "Currently, a new concept of the development of the sphere is being developed, aimed at increasing the productivity of agricultural production, creating conditions for reducing the cost of food and ensuring their accessibility for the population," the official said.
At the same time, he acknowledged that many products remain inaccessible to socially disadvantaged groups of the population. A serious test for Armenian farmers is the periodic drought, which is largely due to global climate change and which causes serious damage to the development of agricultural production. To the problems of acting He also attributed the low profitability of farms and the absence or lack of irrigation water. In order to solve the existing problems, the government of the country is already taking a number of measures: projects on leasing equipment and agricultural equipment are being subsidized, machine and tractor stations are being created, work is being done to insure agricultural risks and lower interest rates on agricultural loans. 38 socially unsecured border communities of Armenia enjoy state subsidies in the form of 60 thousand drams for each hectare of land cultivated.
One of the directions for the development of agricultural production, Garnik Petrosyan continued, is the expansion of the sown agricultural areas. Currently, he continued, only 50% of farmland is used. Answering the question of ArmInfo about how agricultural land will be expanded, 90% of which are privatized, and their owners are located either in the cities of Armenia or outside its borders, and acting. The Deputy Minister pointed out the need for legislative changes and the study of the possibility of transferring these lands to rental use.
Note that on October 16, the world celebrates World Food Day, established by the United Nations in 1945. According to the goals of the UN, it is planned to reach zero hunger by 2030. However, since 2015, there has been a trend of growing hunger, which affects every ninth inhabitant of the planet, or 821 million people.