Azerbaijan not experiencing wheat shortage, to continue buying necessary amounts of fertilizer, grain from Russia - Aliyev

BAKU. Aug 12 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan is not experiencing shortages of wheat and other grains, President Ilham Aliyev said.

Speaking in an interview with the Azerbaijani television channel AzTV on Friday, Aliyev said "many countries are physically unable to provide their own population with wheat and grain" because of the events in Ukraine. "However, Azerbaijan has no such problems," he said.

Azerbaijan historically imports grain and fertilizers from Russia, he said.

"As a result of agreements reached with our Russian partners, as much fertilizers and grain will be supplied to Azerbaijan as we want," he said.

While Azerbaijan produces and exports carbamide fertilizers itself, it has to import other types of fertilizers, he said.

"All these factors are reality [...] We are doing and will be doing practical work to completely hedge against any problems. I am sure that we will be able to significantly increase crop yield within the next few years due to irrigation projects, proper agricultural engineering and other measures and subsidies so as to receive more harvest on areas under crops," he said.