02 May 2004 09:00
Chechen sowing campaign ending despite mines in fields, bad weather
[Presenter] The sowing campaign is ending in Chechnya. The majority of the republic's population is employed in
the farming sector since there are shortages of other jobs there. Even though there is a ban on using certain types of
fertilizers and the weather is producing many surprises, the farmers achieve good harvests.
Pavel Poluychik reports from Nozhay-Yurtovskiy District:
[Correspondent] Farmlands in Nozhay-Yurtovskiy District yield good harvests, but the main thing is to manage to sow
the crops on time. However, the weather has been producing surprise after surprise this year - as soon as it stopped
raining, the land was covered with thick fog. The sowing campaign will finish in several days' time, that is why
there is now hard work in the fields where nothing is seen.
Two Belarus tractors will appear only for couples of minutes - a quick U-turn and the tractors will disappear in the
white-as-milk fog. One can see things at a distance of only a metre.
Is that hard?
[Unidentified man, speaking while driving a tractor] We have to - we are not working for the first year. We know
every stone here.
[Correspondent] Only furrows and fog are seen from the cabin of a tractor: a sad picture. But it is only today.
Usually, there are mountains, behind which Vedeno is located, seen on one side and even Groznyy is seen from the other
side on a sunny day. Every spare plot of land has been worked.
[Ali Chetayev, director of Galaytinskiy state farm, captioned, interviewed in a field] We have sown maize here and
winter wheat is sown there. We managed to sow practically all spring crops before it started raining. We sowed spring
barley on an area of 112 ha.
[Correspondent] People love the land here and they appreciate it and save on it. Wheat, maize, barley, lucerne and
sunflower were sown on 700 ha and a further 200 ha still remains untouched: the local command office is short of field
engineers to remove mines.
[Another unidentified man, showing a metal object] This is part of a barrelled grenade launcher. We found a shell for
a grenade launcher. It can explode any minute. There are lots of such shells found here.
[Correspondent] Future quintals which are yet to be reaped have already been distributed in advance: one part will go
to pay off a loan, another part to pay wages and the rest to buy seeds and new vehicles so as not to ask from the
centre.
[Video shows tractors working in fields in fog, a driver of a tractor, interviews]
[Channel One TV] |
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