Penza, 29 October 2015. PenzaNews. The first agricultural forum has opened in the Penza State Agricultural Academy on Thursday, October 29.

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A large exhibition spanned over the buildings of the academy features information on agricultural enterprises of the Penza regions and other parts of Russia, along with demonstration examples.

Ivan Belozertsev was the first to get acquainted with the exhibition.

Describing his impressions, the head of the region stressed that the forum must serve as a field to exchange experience and provide a push for further development of the agricultural sector.

“This year’s results for us are not bad: the crop yield is 1,650,000 tons. It is the best yield for the last 15-20 years for the Penza region,” he noted.

However, Ivan Belozertsev pointed out that different agrarians show different results with similar conditions.

“Some agricultural producers get a good yield, while others get 2-3 times less. Our objective during the forum is to discuss these issues and help the agricultural producers who get less on the same soil and with the same weather to use modern scientific and technological achievements, machines, approaches,” the governor explained.

He expressed his belief that an increase in yield will attract new investors to the Penza region, and placed emphasis on importance of crop type selection and development of this field.

In turn, Alexander Eremkin, first deputy chairman of the Penza region Legislative Assembly, pointed out that moving even further after getting good results is difficult.

“But we have the resources: using modern technologies, machines, scientific discoveries made in Penza, Russia and abroad, training good staff, energy and resource saving technologies,” he clarified.

Their speeches was followed by a report on agricultural results in the region by Andrei Burlakov, first deputy chairman of the Penza region government.

“This year we got good results, also because of increased use of mineral fertilizers, crop protecting agents, herbicides, pesticides. Some areas, including the Bashmakovo, Bekovo and Belinsky areas, show good results exactly thanks to increased use of mineral fertilizers. But their average use is still fairly low – 73 kilograms in general weight. We need to at least double this level to get good and stable results,” he said.

According to Andrei Burlakov, introducing abandoned land back into farming will become the main objective for the next year.

“We reintroduced 111,000 hectares of formerly abandoned lands back to farming, but still the non-used land is still very big in volume,” he pointed out.