The meeting was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Russian Agricultural Bank and Sberbank, as well as the heads of regional agro-industrial complexes, branch unions and associations.
The Minister of Agriculture said in his opening remarks that the industry had a goal to harvest no less than 95 million tonnes of grain. Some regions in the Southern and North Caucasus Federal Districts have started fertilising their winter crops and sowing their spring crops. As of 20 March 2013, over 3.2 million hectares of winter grain crops were fertilised (2.5 million in the Southern Federal District and 730,000 hectares in the North Caucasus Federal District), or 2.6 million hectares more than in 2012. The spring sowing campaign continues in the North Caucasus and Southern Federal Districts. In all, 317,500 hectares, or 0.6% of the total area, has been sown, he said.
Via videoconference, the heads of the regional agro-industrial complexes reported on the status of the crops, saying that 4.4 million hectares, or 83%, in the Southern Federal District were in a good or satisfactory state, and 0.9 million hectares, or 17%, were in a less than desirable state. The figures for the North Caucasus Federal District were 1.9 million hectares (86%) and 0.3 million hectares (14%) respectively.
