OREANDA-NEWS. August 23, 2011. About 10 per cent of the Moldovan soil is in a critical condition, whereas 50 per cent in a deplorable one. In order to settle the problems in this field, the government today approved a programme for soil conservation and fertility improvement for 2011-2020.

Agriculture and Food Minister Vasile Bumacov said at a cabinet meeting that the programme envisages the creation of an automatic information system for the assessment of the soil condition. The programme is also meant to stop the active forms of soil degradation and to improve the soil fertility in order to obtain the planned harvest.

Bumacov said that in the past 20 years the soil degradation processes have aggravated. Thus, at present, over 40 per cent of farmlands are affected by water erosions. Another 220,000 hectares lack hummus and have big amounts of salting, 25,000 hectares face active landslides and other 50,000 are damaged.

The minister also noted that other similar state programmes produced no results, being mostly declarative, because of financial shortages.

To this end, the action plan for 2011-2013 approved within the framework of the above-mentioned programme, sees proceeds of 54 million lei. Additional action plans in this respect are to be approved once in three years.