National News

Belarus thrashes 4.4m tons and harvests two thirds of grain

Belarusian agricultural companies have thrashed 4.4 million tons of grain and harvested two thirds of grain fields (64.5%), BelTA learnt in the farming and planting department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs of Belarus. According to specialists, Minsk oblast companies are absolute leaders with 1 million 228 thousand tons of grain thrashed. To date, Grodno oblast thrashed some 860 thousand tons of grain, Brest oblast – 722 thousand tones, Gomel and Mogilev – more than 583 thousand tons each, Vitebsk oblast – 460 thousand tons. Grodno oblast reports the highest crop capacity - 36.2 centners per hectare. Mogilev and Minsk oblast receive 32.4 and 31.2 centners per hectare respectively. These are the highest results in the country, the Ministry noted.

Yesterday some 277,400 tones of grain were harvested on 86,500 hectares. The daily harvesting rates grew by 3.8%. In Vitebsk, Grodno and Minsk oblasts the figure exceeded 4%. Realizing the importance of completing the harvesting campaign while the weather is nice, heads of agricultural companies take measures to maximally use the labour and technical resources. Now 12,771 combines are engaged in harvesting or 91% of their total number. The daily production per one combine harvester is 7.7 hectares. The highest production is recorded in Grodno oblast where it is nearing 9 hectares. In Brest and Minsk oblasts it exceeds 8 hectares.

However, 1,269 combine harvesters have not been engaged, of them 505 because of bad weather, other 754 due to their malfunction. This is a normal situation which has no significant impact on harvesting.

Agricultural companies of Belarus have been instructed to organize 24-hour work of combine harvesters in order to collect as much as possible before rough weather arrives. By mid August grain harvesting should be over, the Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs of Belarus stressed.