“Pressing” in the program Satik Seyranyan the guest businessman-farmer, Harutyun Mnatsakanyan is a member of the “Strong Armenia” party։

The main theses of the interview are below.

• We are so economically interconnected with Iran that any action, war event around Iran, when the borders are closed, will have a serious impact on us. Iran now has a food security problem, and banning the export of its agricultural products for obvious reasons will have a long-term effect on us. We import cream from Iran, for example, and it can be said that our dairy production is based on Iranian cream. And if this lasts for a long time, the prices of dairy products will increase in our country. In addition, we import up to 8000 tons of tomato concentrate and raw materials for the production of other products from Iran. to become more expensive. The prices of onions, bell peppers, garlic, pulses have already increased… Therefore, the sooner the Iran war stops, the better it will be for us.

• Lars was closed, it just opened, there are ugly queues. Besides that, our trucks stand for days at Georgian checkpoints, even in Tbilisi there is a queue. The product spoils, you have to pay extra for downtime.

• There is no country in the world that does not first try to solve its food security problem. Grain self-sufficiency is 16-17% for us, but we should strive to reach 60-70%. The “Strong Armenia” party’s program of establishing greenhouses and procurement stations is also aimed at food security. It is to ensure that there is no shortage of any product. Supply stations will play a balancing role. To export a product, you need to produce a large volume of product. As the leader of the country, only if you do all that, you can secretly eat pie with a napkin on the campaign trail…

• 2023 Gasoline prices were much cheaper than now when Azeri gasoline is coming. Gasoline in our country went from 340 to 520 drams. Azerbaijani gasoline was manipulated so much that it is allegedly cheap, it is cheap, it is only 20 drams cheaper.

• When 4th grade wheat comes, you should not propagate as if we ate from that bread. No, you didn’t eat that bread. Rumor has it that the wheat was used in the production of alcohol. That wheat is not enough for you to win points on primitive things at the level of a minister…

• What was done for the safety of our citizens? They raised the prices of plane tickets to astronomical figures, and then they came to the idea that if you have money to go on vacation, if you post a picture in a bathing suit, you will have money for the ticket. Well done, gone. That citizen swimming in a bathing suit pays more taxes than you… You are a state, what have you done? They saw that there was a lot of noise, and now they say that we will compensate them with 200,000 drams. You, as the government, should not be concerned about why your citizen is in Dubai or Muscat, your task is to protect your citizen. We have 40,000 Armenians in Iran, what did the embassy and the MFA do to ensure their safety?:

• Our government is able to sell any failure on our people as a success. We have prisoners in Azerbaijan for 5 years, they were so incompetent, they could not bring them, after 5 years they brought some prisoners and sold them to the people as a favor. They were able to sell the recognition of Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan as an increase in Armenia’s sovereignty. Nicole succeeds. Even now, they constantly exploit the topic of war with blackmail. They say that if we are not there, there will be no peace, there will be no TRIPP, nothing will happen… It’s just a shame. 

• “Strong Armenia” with the face of Samvel Karapetyan communicates honestly with people and speaks the truth. But that is also what they are turning against us. CP members are manipulating people by saying that “Strong Armenia” will give its votes to Robert Kocharyan. People ask us in the regions: will you vote for Robert Kocharyan? But why should we vote for Robert Kocharyan, or why should we want to become a governorate?:

• I am afraid that the point of irreversibility is violated, then it will be very difficult to restore some systems in our country.

• In the pre-election period, they promise everything. If you don’t digitize your country’s agriculture, all insurance companies will refuse to insure. A clockwork mechanism is needed. Huge sums of money go into agriculture, but they are wasted and no progress is made. The funds of the Kaps reservoir were wasted, they could not open it, it was built with German money, it was closed… 

• Regarding the insurance, Pashinyan said that the farmer knows where the hail will come, he takes the crops there and sows them to get insurance. When they told me, I didn’t believe that he said such an absurd thing, but I heard that he really said it. I don’t know what this is. First, the farmer’s land is a piece of land, secondly, there is no one in the world who can predict where the hail will come, and thirdly, the farmer does not sow the crop to get insurance, he does not need it.:

• Increasing the pension by up to 10,000 drams without amending the law and introducing it to the National Assembly is pre-election bribery.:

• Under the leadership of Samvel Karapetyan, “Strong Armenia” offers serious economic and agricultural programs. No country in the world has agriculture without stocking stations. After placing his crops at the procurement stations, the farmer has time to sell his crops. Fertilizer, equipment will be given to the farmer at cost price. Supply stations will be in place. A large plant will have a capacity of 10,000 tons and will work with Armenian store chains. Logistics costs will decrease, while the processing sector will develop. There will be no spillage. The supply station will close the entire cycle of agriculture. This is “Strong Armenia”. will go on the way.

• The “Smart Cattle Farm” program of these authorities was a failed project, the slaughterhouses were problematic. We have talked about it many times and said it will not work. 

• We have a decline in the number of pigs and cattle. The price of beef has increased by 500 drams for that very reason. The price of pork does not increase because they bring pork from Russia at a fairly cheap price and sell it instead of local, which hurts our local farmers. 

• When 2019-2020 government propaganda began to spread that hemp is a salvation, I spoke against it, I said: you don’t have any economic calculations, hemp thread, oil, tetrahydrocannabinol, other components will come out, how will you produce industrial hemp with two components? That too failed. They checked the pilot, saw that he was not giving a hand, and closed it. Now I expect that one day they will legalize the drug, and hemp production will be profitable, but I hope that day will not come.

• The Ministry of Agriculture is the most important. it does not only solve the food problem, it is one of the components of national security. I’m sure that soon, after 8 years of closing, they will announce the opening of the Ministry of Agriculture and present it as a big gift, and it’s nothing that they closed the ministry themselves., The specialists were treated… 

Details in the video.

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