In our country, 25 to 30 percent of the population works in agriculture, and not having a Ministry of Agriculture in such a country, to downsize it, calling it “optimization,” was just ridiculous. The second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, stated this during a talk with his supporters.

"Agriculture [in Armenia] has been hit hard. First of all, that [agriculture] ministry must be re-established because, in essence, there is no policy-making body in that domain today [in the country]; this is not normal, it is an abnormal phenomenon.

Also, how could the Ministry of Culture have been downsized? Our intelligentsia was sounding the alarm. For me, this power has a mind-boggling characteristic: not listening to specialists; as if the specialist is an enemy. I do not know where it comes from. From the hang-ups that they are not experts in anything? Or from what? But this is a hang-up that destroyed the domains [in Armenia]. The result is what we have," Kocharyan said, adding that agriculture will be one of the driving forces of Armenia's development.