Villagers need donors to develop businesses independently – minister

Villagers cannot engage in entrepreneurial activities of their own unless they have donors to assist them, Armenia’s new minister of agriculture said today, calling for more active efforts towards developing the sector.

“It is important, apart from daily earnings, to start thinking also about what to do to make the agriculture develop or secure an extra profit. A strategic program is now  being developed to outline the trends potentially offering assistance. A villager today cannot logically engage in his or her own business against the absence of financial resources,” Ignati Arakelyan explained.

The minister said he hasn’t observed any progress in rural economies the past 25 years since gaining independence.

“We are now trying to develop [agriculture], as nothing has changed for the villager in the past quarter of century,” he added.

Asked what measures the Ministry of Agriculture is planning to undertake to rule out conflicts between villagers and companies procuring their produce, Arakelyan said they have embarked on elaborating a new formula. “We are in a process of developing a formula to make also the surplus procurable. The draft is available, so we will submit it once it is complete,” he added.