OREANDA-NEWS. April 15, 2013. By holding renewal of irrigation systems, the national agrarians can increase gross harvest by 20 million tons. This was informed by Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food Mykola Prysyazhniuk during a working visit to Mykolayiv.

“Irrigation is a strategic task for our country. As we are in the zone of risky agriculture. That’s why the President drew attention and gave a commission to the Cabinet of Ministers to launch the program of renewal of irrigation. So, there is a Governmental decision to return inter-farm network and the local authorities agreed with that. At the same time, we are readying economical technical grounding concerning the national irrigation system. And on restoring it, we will increase the gross harvest of grain crops by 20 million tons at the least,” Mykola Prysyazhniuk emphasized.

In addition, the Minister stressed that in general it was planned to resume irrigation on almost 3.5 million hectares of land during 4-5 years. And the funds for that are envisaged to be accumulated at the account of state financial support and investments. In the result the agrarians will obtain energy-saving irrigation technologies which comply with peculiarities of the regions.

“Our task is to timely provide with cheap water. Indeed, with renovation of the irrigation system the agricultural producer has to receive economically grounded water for irrigation and improve showings of its own harvest. And nowadays we see there are national technological solutions, scientific recommendations and calculations and, the most significant, – the wish of agriculturalists to apply the most optimal for their economies irrigation technologies,” Mykola Prysyazhniuk.

It should be noted that the Program of activization of the economic development for 2013-2014, endorsed by the Government, envisages resuming and modernization of irrigation systems in the southern Ukraine.