YEREVAN. – In a conversation with Armenian News-NEWS.am, Hrach Berberyan, President of the “Agrarian-Rural Union of Armenia” NGO, summed up the year of agriculture in the country 2019. He stressed that according to official data, there is a 7% decline in the sector, but they estimate that the actual decline is 15%.

"Those numbers, as the prime minister said, were numbers collected from the air in the past," he said. “We get false numbers. (...). We need to get rid of the personnel who are far from the field; then we will succeed.”

According to him, the wheat and potato fields will decrease next year. “Armenia was the country that exported 56,000 tons of potatoes four years ago, whereas this year we started importing potatoes from Belarus and some [other] countries. This, I think, is done deliberately to destroy our economy, and the first blow to agriculture was the shutting down of the agriculture ministry."

Referring to the "smart barns" project proposed by the new authorities, the agriculture expert said it was offered by people who had never seen a barn. "These barns are temporary buildings, very cheap," he said. “But that does not fit our climatic conditions; we need strong, seismic-resistant buildings.”

Referring to Armenia’s meat market, the agriculture expert noted that beef prices have risen slightly this year, whereas pork has declined, but there is stagnation in the meat market. "There is more meat on the market than they buy," he said. "That is, the purchasing power of the population has fallen, which means more people are now emigrating than before."

According to him, Armenia’s farmers have done their best, but the government has proposed "dubious" plans that will not work, such as insurance in agriculture.