Speaking at the meeting, Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Fyodorov said that support was provided to 3,013 start-up farms in 2012, while 788 family livestock farms were built and reconstructed. The number considerably exceeds the programme target.
Director of the Department of Rural Development and Social Policy Dmitry Toropov said that the federal and regional budgets allocations for these programmes in 2012 amounted to 5.6 billion roubles (2.9 billion roubles for start-up farm support and 2.7 billion roubles for family livestock farm development).
Grants for establishing and developing farms and one-off assistance for building the relevant infrastructure were offered by 71 regions. Grants for family livestock farm development were offered by 65 regions.
According to Mr Toropov, local governments carried out intensive work on supporting start-up farms in the Republic of Buryatia, the Republic of Dagestan, the Republic of Ingushetia, the Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria, the Republic of Karachayevo-Circassia, and the Chechen Republic, and in the Voronezh, Saratov and Tver regions, as well as in the Perm Territory. The republics of Bashkortostan, Ingushetia, Karachayevo-Circassia, North Ossetia-Alania, Tatarstan, Tyva and Udmurtia, and the Bryansk and Saratov regions exceeded the family livestock farm development target.
Following the meeting, the Minister issued a number of instructions to the Ministry of Agriculture’s departments. Mr Fyodorov stressed once again the importance of programmes to create jobs, to help rural people with household plots to create farms, and programmes providing for the construction of small, modern and efficient family farms.
