At the beginning of the meeting, the Governor spoke about the results of the 2022 harvest campaign in response to the President’s question. The region has harvested 15.1 million tonnes of grain, leguminous crops and rice, including 10.7 million tonnes of wheat. Durum wheat accounts for 85 percent of the total. Mr Kondratyev noted as important the fact that the agro-industrial complex and enterprises have purchased agricultural equipment worth 7 billion rubles this year. The prices of fertiliser, petroleum, oil and lubricants have stabilised.
Vladimir Putin congratulated all farmers of the Krasnodar Territory on their achievements. Apart from leading the way, the region sets the pace and standards, and it also shows what objectives should be accomplished.
According to the Governor, the financial year is successful. Budget revenues have increased by just over 15 percent on 2021 levels. In the past six years, the regional budget has more than doubled. At that time, a 100-million ruble industrial support fund was created, and it now totals 5 billion rubles.
The discussion also touched upon the development of the Territory’s viticulture and wine-making industries. The Governor recalled that Russia had passed legislation regulating these sectors and defined the concept of Russian wine for the first time. The President noted that the law had been approved on the initiative of the heads of wine-making regions, primarily the Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, the Stavropol Territory and Daghestan.
Mr Kondratyev said that the Territory had expanded its vineyards by approximately 18 percent since early 2022, and that their area now totalled 28,500 hectares. In all, 240,000 tonnes of grapes have been collected in 2022, and this is enough to fill 35 to 40 million bottles of wine. The Krasnodar Territory meets 50 percent of the country’s wine demand.
The President and the Governor also discussed land management issues. Vladimir Putin also noted that, while supporting major commodity producers, one should not forget about farms, which have always accounted for a substantial share of the regional economy.
Mr Kondratyev noted that the Territory now had over 13,000 farmers, and that their legal rights were guaranteed to the fullest extent. For example, the law shields them from major agro-industrial market players, agroholdings. State support volumes exceed 10.5 billion rubles, with farmers receiving about 1.5 million rubles from this amount.
The President said that it was necessary to organise work in such a way as to prevent bureaucracy from hampering the use of state support tools by the people. It is necessary to eliminate excessive red tape and to pave the way for state support that should reach specific commodity producers as quickly as possible, and that should yield maximum possible results.
The President also drew the attention of the Governor and other regional colleagues to the need to support the families of service personnel now performing their military duty and defending the Motherland. He noted that he knew how the region’s authorities were organising this work. The President emphasised the importance of this work once again and asked the Governor’s team to fulfil this highly important instruction and to prioritise it in the Territory administration’s activities.