December 26, 2011

Wheat and rye crop in Armenia grew 30% to 392,500 tonnes this year, Agriculture Minister Sergo Karapetyan said Friday (Dec 23).

The country's wheat crop grew 20.9% on-year to 221,800 tonnes while rye crop was up 43.9% to 170,700 tonnes.

Karapetyan said that average crop yield was 28.6 quintals per one hectare in 2011 against 21.1 a year earlier.

"We have certain achievements in cereals production," he said.

Now Armenia produces 37-40% of the county's consumption, he said, and plans to increase this indicator to 60% in 2020.

The minister said that the seed growing development plan for 2010-2014 will contribute to this a great deal, adding that 1,500 tonnes of stock seeds were brought to Armenia this year as part of this programme.

"If we manage to enlarge our areas under crop by 25,000 hectares every year, we'll be able to use also non-arable areas," Karapetyan said.

Armenia has 470,000 hectares of arable land. Of them, only 71% are used according to their intended purpose, while the remaining 130,000 are misused.