Before the elections, the political authorities became generous towards the villagers. They are preparing to subsidize the price of purchased milk just a few days before the elections.

“The government will subsidize the price of purchased milk. We will soon implement an indirect subsidy program for the price of milk, the beneficiaries of which will be our citizens engaged in animal husbandry”, said Gevorg Papoyan, who served as the Minister of Economy for the political propaganda of KP.

Even before that, within the framework of the same political propaganda and pre-election campaign, the government decided to subsidize the prices of fertilizer in the amount of up to 3 thousand drams for 1 bag. Earlier, they announced about providing interest-free loans to the peasants through subsidies at the expense of the budget.

If there were no elections, it might seem that we are dealing with a caring government, they take care of the peasants, help and support agriculture. On the one hand, they give interest-free money, on the other hand, through subsidies, they create conditions for the development of agriculture, the production of agricultural products increases, the competitiveness increases, and the incomes of the peasants increase.

But come and see that it is not like that. agriculture does not develop, the production of agricultural products does not increase, and the incomes of the peasants do not increase.

It is so, because with such “aids” the government is not actually trying to solve the problem of agricultural development, but of getting the votes of the peasants in the elections. Otherwise, it is not the first year that the farmers complained about the low prices of milk procurement, but the government did nothing to subsidize the prices of milk procurement and help the peasants.

One month before the elections, they remembered that they should also subsidize milk prices.

It is assumed that this is not a long-term subsidy. After the elections, if a miracle happens and is repeated, they will find a thousand and one reasons to refuse it.

These authorities have long proven that the priority for them is not the state and citizens, but their own government. And what they are doing now, they are doing to keep their power. Whether there will be an increase in pensions, salaries, provision of agricultural loans or subsidies for fertilizer and milk prices, it is done for one purpose, to maintain power.

For years, they did not think about subsidizing milk prices, and as a result, livestock farming was brought to the brink of destruction. Of course, it is not only cattle breeding, the whole agriculture is in a state of paralysis, there has been neither development nor any orderly growth for years. It is not surprising that after only one year of growth, agriculture is in decline again. In the first quarter of this year, a 5.2 percent decline was recorded. Last year’s growth was mainly the result of favorable climatic conditions, not the government’s implemented programs.

From time to time, they announce plans to develop agriculture and support farmers, they talk about billions of financial aid, but the benefits of agriculture are not visible, the acreage is not expanding, the volume of production of agricultural products is not increasing, instead of increasing, the number of livestock is decreasing.

Livestock keeping in Armenia today has become inconvenient and unprofitable. The costs are many, the benefits are few. That is why the number of livestock has been significantly reduced.

In the last 5 years, the number of cattle in Armenia has decreased by almost a quarter. There are many reasons, and one of the main ones was the terribly low prices of milk procurement. The stocking organizations buy milk from the farmer for pennies. Milk has been cheaper than water in Armenia for years.

They haven’t done anything to solve the problem for so many years, they decided to take another populist step before the elections.

If they were really concerned about animal husbandry, especially about the peasant, they would have taken measures a long time ago, and now that branch of agriculture would not be facing such a situation.

Today, the price of beef in Armenia, in the words of Nikol Pashinyan, has set a historical record, reached 4-5 thousand drams, according to official data, it has increased by more than 20 tons in one year. Beef has never been so expensive before. It has become more expensive because there is no meat. Even the existing one does not satisfy the demand.

They reduce the domestic production so that tomorrow they will import it from abroad through their own oligarchs, sell it to the people at high prices and make a lot of money. Importing is both easy and far from unnecessary headaches, so why should they think about organizing local production?

Today, agriculture is still in such difficult conditions, tomorrow both the peasants and agriculture will be in a much worse situation. The efforts of the authorities to establish trade relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, to open the borders, will devastate Armenia’s agriculture. They will deprive the peasant of what he has.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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