Armenian government is tackling agricultural problems

PanARMENIAN.Net - Eighty thousand rural residents will be beneficiaries of a new program with total cost of $21,3 million, of which $16 million will be provided by the World Bank as a credit for the Community Agricultural Resource Management and Competitiveness (CARMAC) Project for Armenia. This Project is designed to improve productivity and sustainability of pasture-based livestock farms in 55 mountainous communities by increasing milk production, improving pasture management, and enhancing farm sales of livestock products.

For the women and men living in Armenia’s mountainous communities, livestock production is the main source of cash income and livelihood. The CARMAC project will help address key constraints facing these activities, including unsustainable pasture management and underutilization, persistent diseases, processing and marketing constraints.

The Project will introduce innovative community-based pasture/fodder-based livestock production practices. Villages will be selected based on their interest in improving their livestock production through sustainable use of pasture resources. The Project will also help improve pasture management, through investments in infrastructure, community level agri-business, and related support services. Most importantly, the investments will be channeled through pasture user associations – all-inclusive co-operatives created for the management of community pasture resources.

Even development of Armenia’s provinces is one of the government’s priorities, RA Prime Minister said during a discussion on territorial development concept. “Yerevan hyper-centralization hampers both the capital city and rural areas development.”

According to UN Resident Coordinator in Armenia Dafina Gercheva, the challenges and problems of Armenia’s rural areas have prompted the necessity of such concept. “To tackle the persisting problems, governmental and international financing is needed,” she said.

During a visit to Aragatsotn Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan met with farmers to discuss a number of most pressing problems, specifically the low price of milk offered by the dairy products manufacturers. In 2010 a liter of milk was purchased at AMD 90.

This year the rural residents will have a chance to see and about their problems to high ranking officials, who are resolved to seek solutions for even development of rural areas.