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Lithuanian Agriculture Minister Kazys Starkevičius: Our agriculture is the best

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   More expensive Lithuanian apples can outdo the cheaper Polish ones with quality, says Lithuania’s Minister of Agriculture Kazys Starkevičius. The politician, who spends his evenings tending to his carrots, offers himself as an example for those who are dissatisfied with surging food prices – he suggests planting a small garden.

- Lithuanians often joke they are the second generation from the plough. Agriculture has been feeding our nation for centuries. How big a share does it have in our current economy?

- It had its best indicators during the crisis: in 2010, agriculture grew almost 2 percent, while economy as a whole contracted by 15 percent and construction industry dipped as much as 45 percent. Agriculture accounts for 7 percent of GDP. Our exports grew over 30 percent last year. That shows huge potential.
Our export market includes 123 countries. 60 percent of Lithuania’s agricultural exports end up in the European Union, the remaining 40 percent – in other countries. A third goes to Russia. The Russian market is currently very important to us and we’re happy that it is solvent.
   However, we are looking for alternatives. We signed a cooperation agreement for 2012-2013 with Chinese vice-minister. He came here with good news – China will import our fish products and canned goods. We hope to start exporting meat and dairies to China this year.
Domestic consumption is on the rise too. What we have to do now is to strengthen stockbreeding and dairy farming.
   We have 111 thousand registered farmers but only about 60 thousand actually farm, while the rest registered just to get certain exemptions. There are particularly many farmers in the Vilnius region, even though economic indicators are less than shiny there.
We have introduced a mandatory number of livestock – farmers declaring land must have at least 0.1 conventional animal (cattle over 2 years old and horses over 6 months old correspond to one conventional animal; one sow equals 0.5; layer hen – 0.014 conventional animal). (Read more)

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