The meeting's participants discussed harvesting, seasonal field-work, processing animal feed and paid particular attention to providing financial help for those agricultural concerns that suffered during the drought.

The first deputy prime minister said that 14.8 billion roubles had already been allocated to the regions, adding that the next Government Presidium meeting would approve an executive order to distribute 5 billion roubles between the constituent entities to cover drought-induced losses. "These funds will be allocated in proportion to the official records of the loss entailed," the first deputy prime minister said.

Viktor Zubkov drew the regional authorities' attention to the need for the regions to be more active in co-financing the money allocated from the federal budget and the need for the money received to be used more efficiently. "Solving these tasks will affect our allocation of the second tranche of federal funds to drought relief in October and November," the first deputy prime minister stressed.

"Ensuring agricultural businesses that suffered in the drought have sufficient fodder remains another top-priority issue," Viktor Zubkov said. "At present agricultural businesses have only 80% of the amount of animal feed they need. The regional authorities must intensify their work on this issue. The Republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and Mordovia have seen the highest fodder production volumes," he added.

Fodder grain will also be transported between constituent entities to those agricultural businesses where it is needed. "There has been an increase in grain transportation. Southern regions supplied other constituent entities with more grain in the first two weeks of September than they did over the previous two months," the first deputy prime minister said, citing the figures. The government's decision to set reduced tariffs for grain and fodder transportation to the Central and Volga Federal Districts will also help increase the amount of transported grain and fodder.

"Tariffs will be halved for grains transported over 300 km from the Southern and North Caucasian Federal District, and a 0.3 decreasing coefficient will be applied to grain transported over 1,100 km from the Siberian Federal District; this decision will be in force from September 20 until the end of this year," Viktor Zubkov said. "This measure will stimulate the consumer purchase of fodder grain and reinvigorate the grain transportation market," he added.

Implementing these decisions that are aimed at supporting the volume of available fodder will help to sustain livestock levels. In this regard, Viktor Zubkov ordered banks that lend to agricultural businesses to consider the possibility of giving loans to private and small agricultural businesses to purchase fodder. "Those businesses that preserve their livestock levels will receive 5 billion roubles from the federal budget in the first quarter of next year to subsidise their animal feed purchases," the first deputy prime minister noted.

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The working group meeting was held as a videoconference with those regional governors who declared the state of emergency following this summer's abnormally high temperatures. The Interdepartmental Working Group on Drought Relief was established on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's order and includes representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Regional Development, the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief, the Ministry of Energy, the Federal Service for Insurance Supervision, the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring, the Federal Service for State Statistics, the Federal Antimonopoly Service, Russian Railways as well as people from the banking and expert communities.