Fico: This Year's Harvest Above Average

Fico: This Year's Harvest Above Average

Bratislava, July 27 (TASR) – This year’s harvest of crops will be above average in Slovakia and is likely to be better than last year’s, which reached the best figures in the last decade, said Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) at a briefing on Wednesday.

Fico was speaking in the middle of a wheat field in Zahorska Bystrica (Bratislava region) with the participation of Slovak Agriculture and Food Chamber (SPPK) chairman Milan Semancik, Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry State Secretary Anton Stredak, the ministry’s Agriculture Department director general Stefan Ryba, Devin Cooperative of Shareholders board chair Zuzana Pagacova and other agricultural experts.

The above-average harvest means that farmers have to take into account the fall in prices, said Fico.
“We’ll have to continue putting pressure on Brussels in terms of milk and also of pork meat. The production of crops is related to this as well,” he added.

According to Semencik, by Monday (July 25) farmers had harvested around 60 percent of wheat, 60 percent of barley and 88 percent of rapeseed.

“Provided that the remaining 40 percent of area is harvested without problems, it seems that this year’s harvest will be one of the largest over the last decade,” he added.

Farmers, however, are unhappy about crop prices which went down by €20-30 year-on-year per tonne, said the SPPK chair. Romania and Hungary have also had high-yield harvests.