Azerbaijan, Baku, Aug. 26 /Trend, A.Akhundov/
According to data provided by the Agriculture Ministry of Azerbaijan, as of Aug. 22, wheat was harvested from an area of 654,021 hectares, accounting for 99.97 percent of the sown area as compared to 99.98 percent in the same period of the last year.
"As of Aug. 22, wheat was sown on an area of 654,197 hectares, while last year the work was carried out in an area of 657,645 hectares," the Ministry said on Friday.
Sown area under wheat declined by 0.5 percent during the year.
Despite the decline in sown area, wheat production increased by 25.5 percent compared with last year. As of Aug. 22, the country harvested 1,639,912 tons of wheat.
As said before Agriculture Minister Ismat Abbasov, in 2011 in Azerbaijan is expected to manufacture 2.5 million tons of grain, which exceeds last year to 500 thousand tons.
Azerbaijan is expected to produce 2.5 million tons of grain in Azerbaijan, which is 500,000 tons more than last year. "We forecast production of 2.5 million tons of grain given favorable weather conditions, 1.7 million of which will account for food grain," the Minister of Agriculture Ismet Abasov said earlier.
Barley is planned to yield 800,000 tons in 2011.
Last year the country harvested more than 2.000 million tons of grain, which is 33 percent less than in 2009. Some 20.7 quintals of grain were harvested from each hectare of land, on average.
Abasov said today the country's demand in grain crops is 3-3.2 million tons.