Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has proposed allocating additional funds to agricultural producers to buy fertilizers and carry out spring sowing.
"We have already implemented a serious package of measures. Some 40 billion rubles [$1.3 bln] was allocated to agroindustrial sector enterprises from the federal budget," Putin said at an agricultural conference on Friday.
"I propose sending at least 1 billion rubles [$33 mln] to the enterprises to buy fertilizers... I propose additionally allocating 1 billion rubles as a subsidy to carry out spring sowing, including purchases of seeds," he said.
Agricultural producers were hard hit by this past summer's unprecedented heat wave.
The Russian Agriculture Ministry estimated that severe drought and forest fires had destroyed over 13 million hectares of the country's grain crop.
As a result, the Kremlin banned grain exports, triggering a domestic and global rise in grain prices.
ROSTOV-ON-DON, October 23 (RIA Novosti)
