Penza, 1 March 2017. PenzaNews. The governor of the Penza region Ivan Belozertsev set a task to increase the harvest of grain and leguminous crops by 2.3 million tons in 2017.

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During the meeting of the association of regional agricultural producers, which was held in the regional government on Wednesday, March 1, the minister of agriculture of the Penza region Andrei Burlakov said that it is planned to harvest 2.1 million tons of grain, 2 million tons of sugar beet, and receive 320,000 tons of milk, and 290,000 tons of meat.

However, Ivan Belozertsev said that as this year, it is planned to use 30,000 hectares of sown areas more, then it is possible to increase the amount of crops by 200,000 tons.

"We can easily get 2.3 million tons of grain," the governor emphasized.

He added that in 2016, 30,000 hectares of land were not sown because of the rains, that is why the total amount of the additional sown areas equals to 60,000 hectares.