Agriculture minister admits to national program's failure

Belarus's agriculture minister Syamon Shapira admitted at the Council of Ministers meeting to the failure of "the program to boost economic efficiency of agriculture" on the basis of enterprises which were picked by the government in 2003.  In 2003, the government picked several agricultural enterprises and offered them huge subsidies to make them role models for other agricultural companies.

In 2004-2007 the government injected nearly $400 million apart from leased equipment and fertilizers to amount Br 565,000 per ha. It is worth noting that it is significantly less that EU spends to subsidize farmers, notes Nasha Niva newspaper.