Program supporting Russia's agricultural producers will continue, including payments per hectare of planted land, subsidies for purchase of agricultural equipment, prime minister says

Nevin Barich

MOSCOW , October 13, 2012 (Interfax Information Services) – Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has pledged to the country's agricultural producers that the state support program will continue.

"Naturally, we will be continuing to support agriculture. All the talk that it will be wrapped up and that there is not enough money for it is just hot air," Medvedev said Friday at the opening of the all-Russia agricultural exhibition 'Golden Autumn.' "The money for supporting [rural areas] in the budget is sufficient, and if not, we will find additional resources," the prime minister said.

Among the forms of support are payments per hectare of planted land and subsidies for the purchase of agricultural equipment, Medvedev said. All decisions made concerning the reduction of the tax burden on growers will not be revisited, he said. "Around eighteen billion rubles - that is just a break on the line for towns," he said.

"The government will not abandon the village," the prime minister said. "We will be watching, we will be monitoring what is happening within the country and on world markets that are also developing," he said.

Medvedev congratulated participants in the exhibition and thanked them for their high level of results, noting that this year has not been a simple one. "Compared with 2011, of course, the harvest in [a lot of] regions was not what we had wished because of drought," he said.

The harvest will "cover all domestic needs and maintain export potential considering carry-over stocks," Medvedev said. The total amount of land sown with spring crops over the nine months was up 8%. Output in poultry farming was up 15% and in hog farming 7%, he said.

All the product and regional agri-industrial projects he saw at the exhibition were impressive, Medvedev said. "The number of participants in the exhibition is growing," he said. "There are around two thousand from sixty-one regions this year," he said.

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