DUSHANBE, November 11, 2008, Asia-Plus -- The winter grain sowing campaign is progressing in the country.

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Narzullo Dadaboyev, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), said that farmers haves reached 30.2 percent of this year’s winter grain sowing target, having planted winter grains on 69,339 hectares to this date.  In all, 229,500 hectares have been allotted this year for winter grains.  

We will recall that 273,403 hectares were planted with cereals last year.  In 2007, farmers yielded 931,204 tons of cereals, including 649,300 tons of wheat, while the country’s annual requirements in wheat are 1.2 million tons, the spokesman said.

Tajikistan is currently able to meet only 50 percent of the population’s annual requirements in wheat and the remaining 50 percent is imported from other countries, mainly Kazakhstan.