Transcript of the beginning of the meeting:

Dmitry Medvedev: Mr Bozhenov, we have come here to see what is going on in the field and in this regional centre. To be honest, I didn’t even know that in some areas of your region the losses are comparable to 2010, which was a disastrous year for  agriculture. Things are not so bad everywhere and maybe the general situation is somewhat better. Nevertheless, I understand that a quarter of the harvest or maybe even slightly more has been lost. We have just discussed measures to support rural people and the agribusiness and will continue this conversation at the meeting. In any case, we must take some decisions on the Volgograd Region, the neighbouring Kalmykia where things are even worse, and some other regions.

That said, there has been progress as well. We have just seen the new livestock farms from a helicopter. We have spoken about land improvement, which was well developed in Soviet times but had completely degraded in the 1990s. I see that now you are also trying to deal with this issue, so let’s start our conversation with rural problems.

Sergei Bozhenov: Mr Medvedev, as you have mentioned, we have problems. We have been hit by a drought that has affected about 660,000 hectares. We have areas that did a good job and received more than 35 centners from one hectare, but there are also others that we’ve seen today.

As for land improvement, we receive support from the federal budget and allocate money for it in our regional budget. We’ll continue this programme until 2015, with financing totalling from some 290 million to 410 million roubles, plus an additional 200-250 million roubles from the federal budget. Work is also being done to revive land reclamation, which we believe is absolutely necessary.

We are seeing positive trends with regard to cattle. Today, we provide support through actions not words. We develop infrastructure, grant land plots without any encumbrances, and deal with road infrastructure and electricity issues, all of which helps us sell cattle.

Dmitry Medvedev: So, you are connecting newly built complexes to infrastructure?

Sergei Bozhenov: Exactly, to avoid increasing farmers’ workload, as farmers purchase elite livestock breeds in Australia and America, and this is profitable for us. Also, starting next year, we are planning to increase allocations from the regional budget as much as we can for milk production through 2020. This is a good impetus for developing cattle production.

Another issue here is pig farms. They are developing as well, and it is profitable today, as are poultry farms and any related investment projects. We make efforts to assist them either through tax breaks, which we are authorised to do, or through infrastructure development. So, this sector is advancing as well.      

Dmitry Medvedev: You should also pay attention to people employed in the agricultural sector. This is the main thing, actually. The problem is that wages go down during bad harvests, and people move to places where they can work and earn a living. We have just spoken with the head of a farm and agreed that we should consider ways to provide these people with support. Here some additional investment opportunities can be considered. Each year the situation is different. For instance, in 2008 people purchased combine harvesters through leasing and credit schemes, while in 2010 they barely managed to keep it together, as the agricultural sector goes in cycles, and we have to consider the down periods, which occur for a variety of reasons such as poor harvests or other issues, so that people can be engaged in related sectors.

We must diversify the agriculture business and support people as well. Therefore, I think such a programme would be good for the region because if machine operators leave there will be nobody to replace them.

Sergei Bozhenov: I agree. We are developing orchard farming today. The number of orchards is growing and companies are developing them really well.

Dmitry Medvedev: Did they exist in Soviet times?

Sergei Bozhenov: We did not have companies like Sady Pridonya.

Dmitry Medvedev: No, of course it did not exist back then, but I was referring to orchard farming as an occupation. Did it exist then?

Sergei Bozhenov: It did but not on such a scale.

Dmitry Medvedev: Has this scale increased?

Sergei Bozhenov: Now the scale is increasing. Today we offer network companies the opportunity to acquire land plots, and they start producing tomatoes and meat for their networks. They pay very good salaries.

Today we are signing an agreement with our farmers – this year we allocated an additional 120 million roubles from the regional budget for land improvement to support them. This was not easy but we did this.

What else do we have? We have the support of the federal centre, and I thank you for this. We have opened sports complexes in some district centres and are about to start the construction of swimming pools. We want our district centres to have decent infrastructure. There were no pools in Soviet times and now we are starting to build them. There were no sports complexes of this kind either and we are opening them today. We are also working to diversify agriculture to have enough jobs. We are drafting a programme to this end. We are planning to have it ready in 2013 and to implement it by 2020.

Dmitry Medvedev: Okay, that’s good – press on.

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