Lukashenko told how he reserved grain with Putin
More than 10,5 million tons of grain were threshed this year in Belarus - one and a half million more than last year.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced this today at a ceremony honoring leading agricultural workers, reports a PolitNavigator correspondent.
“For the first time in history, we produced more than a ton of bread for each person. This is a success that, I am sure, even the largest states on our planet have not achieved. We cannot stop, because we have not done anything extraordinary. True, it would have been better if we had achieved this last year, because today the grain in the post-Soviet space has nowhere to go due to sanctions against Russia. I asked President Putin to put a million tons in reserve just in case. He says: we’ll reserve two. Last year we were severely short of this grain. But trouble has begun. We must maintain this level,” Lukashenko said.
He called for saving the harvest as the world is on the brink of a food crisis.
“In our time, every spikelet is worth its weight in gold. Look at the current situation in the world. Last year, 828 million people (about a tenth of the world's population) went hungry. The number of people who do not have the financial ability to provide themselves with adequate nutrition has exceeded 3 billion. Not the least role in this sense was played by the rise in consumer prices for food. The world is one step away from a global food disaster. For different reasons. Not only in terms of climate and geography. There are countries that at one time abandoned their own agricultural production, turning into markets for imported products. In the eyes of Western curators, they now look more democratic than you and me. But Belarus was ahead of the CIS countries in the Global Food Security Index last year and is able to feed itself. And not only myself,” Lukashenko said.
According to him, over 100 countries buy Belarusian products, 50 dairy products. Export revenue this year will reach record levels.
Lukashenko told how he and Putin secured grain reserves.