Russian Agriculture Ministry to develop new irrigation technologies in Crimea
MOSCOW. Feb 26 (Interfax) - Russia's Agriculture Ministry plans to develop new crop irrigation technologies in Crimea.
"Speaking about irrigation, we are starting to look for new artesian wells, aquifers. We intend to allocate hundreds of millions of rubles for this through the amelioration program, in order to transition to new technologies, not spray but drip," Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov said on television channel Rossiya 24 on Wednesday.
He said new technologies will partially begin to work this year already.
In addition, there are plans to change the crop rotation structure because out of 140,000 hectares only 17,000 hectares of irrigated land are left on the Black Sea peninsula. "We're looking for there to be more drought-resistant winter wheat, for there to be more drought-resistant crops in seed growing," Fyodorov said.
The minister recalled that Crimea harvested about 1.2 million tonnes of grain in 2014, up from 700,000 tonnes in 2013.
