The government plans by 2015 to develop the land irrigation system, making a government-secured $2 billion allocation, Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov said at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The premier said that over the past years a trend of sustained high temperatures in summer in southern regions of the country has been seen. Irrigation in the said regions should be considerably increased so that Ukraine is able to maintain the size of its grain harvest.
“Today only 400,000 hectares are irrigated. The total area of irrigated land in 2015 should reach 1.4 million hectares. Thanks to this, gross production of crops for bread could grow to $27 billion. Under the state program on the stirring up of the economy development it is planned to send $2 billion in government guarantees to resume the modernization of the land irrigation system of Ukraine,” the premier said.
