Penza, 2 August 2016. PenzaNews. The Penza region officials must begin controlling the veracity of harvest figures, suggested the governor Ivan Belozertsev during the regional government meeting session on Tuesday, August 2.

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According to him, such measures are required to avoid false reports on decreasing yields.

“They still have this custom from the Soviet years, it is typical for everybody. When I visit large holdings, their heads tell me they abandoned the practice. That is not true. So prepare task forces in the Agriculture Ministry […] to visit the places personally, inspect the harvested fields and visit grain storages […] so that we could see the real yield levels,” the head of the region said.

The known fact of supervision will eliminate any attempts to falsify the reports from the agricultural companies, he explained.

Also, Ivan Belozertsev urged the agrarians to be swift with harvests.

“I do realize that many agrarians think that everything will be alright and the weather is good. But there may be rains and hurricane winds in the future – they’ll bring down the plants, the grain will begin to rot or get roots, and there will be immense losses, leading to us failing our harvest objectives – a total of 2 million tons this year,” the governor noted.

According to him, agrarians must request additional harvest combines from Southern Russia that already completed the process.

“I realize this entails additional expenses, but this will ensure that we save the grain,” Ivan Belozertsev added.