ArmInfo. Third of all the sown areas of the largest village of Aragatsotn district of Armenia were destroyed by yesterday's hail. "Hundreds of hectares of grain and melon crops of Aragatsavan have been destroyed." Apparently, the harvest of apricots has been lost, "head of the community Andranik Papikyan told ArmInfo correspondent.
According to Papikyan, cultivated areas of the village of Aragatsavan are 3 thousand hectares, of which 1 thousand were affected by strong hail that fell out the previous evening. In addition, abundant rains caused the descent of mudflow: the mudflow took several heads of domestic animals. "In the evening, the villagers demanded compensation for the damage, blocked the road, but at the moment, together with the deputy minister of agriculture, they calculate the losses," the head of the community said. The village of Suser, Aragatsotn region, suffered not so much. According to the head of the community Gurgen Zakaryan, according to preliminary estimates, 50% of all fruit trees suffered. However, as the head of the village administration stated, the rest of the harvest was swept away by a drought.
The Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia told ArmInfo that at this stage the amount of damage from the hail is being cleared. According to the information, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ashot Harutyunyan is in Aragatsotn early in the morning. The press service abstained from mentioning how many hectares and what crops were most affected, but assured that a working group was formed to assess the extent of damage inflicted and the organization of operational measures in the Ministry of Agriculture of Armenia. More detailed information was promised to be shared later.
Meanwhile, Ministry of Agriculture still calculates the damage caused by the early hail. As the Minister of Agriculture of Armenia Ignatiy Arakelyan stated on June 15, the Government works in the direction of providing financial support to the peasants in the form of a grace period for loan repayments, or deferring the fulfillment of credit obligations of the villagers of Armavir, Aragatsotn and Tavush districts of the republic. However, as noted by the head of the Armenian Ministry of Agriculture, this toolkit of assistance cannot be a solution to the current situation, as it will not provide full compensation for the damage suffered by the villagers. Rescue for farmers, according to Ignatiy Arakelyan, may be the introduction of an agricultural insurance system, as well as the installation of anti-hail networks, which, although they are long-term and expensive tools - often inaccessible to every farmer, but which will compensate for the damage fully.