Ex-officer Told What Question He Would Ask Belarusian Agrarians
- 18.11.2025, 13:21
Don't blindly believe the numbers and claims of success in agriculture.
This year, grain production in Belarus will exceed its consumption. At least, that's what Vice Premier Yuri Shuleiko claims. According to him, "the loaf is big" - about ten million tons of grain and one million tons of rape seeds have been harvested.
According to the interview of Deputy Prime Minister on the state TV channel, grain used to be in short supply and had to be purchased in Russia, but in the last two years, due to a good harvest, many farms "offer their services for sale. In particular, in 2025, farmers plan to receive about $9 billion in export earnings.
A large harvest is good. However, there are several "buts" at once. Nikolai Lysenkov, an entrepreneur and former official of Stolbtsovsky District Executive Committee, explained in his commentary "Filin" why one should not blindly believe the figures and statements about successes in agriculture.
And the first thing our interlocutor draws attention to is that in Belarus, the statistics takes into account the grain that was harvested from the field, not how much was put in the warehouse:
- 10 million tons may have been harvested together with corn. But also minus shrinkage, minus weediness, minus weed seeds - that is, in fact, less was put into the warehouse. We have always reported in this way to show beautiful figures.
And let's not forget about rape, which has never been a grain crop. But the officials want to show off in front of Lukashenko, and rapeseed is harvested by the same combine harvesters and dried at the same grain drying complexes, so they decided to add it. At least something should be rubbed in people's faces.
In general, 10 million tons of grain would have been a good figure for Belarus in 1980, or 40 years ago.
In the Soviet Union, it was believed that the country's food security was ensured if about a ton of grain per person was harvested - it was prescribed in Soviet textbooks on economics of the 1970s.
But even if we take the official figures on faith, this is not progress. This is the bar from which we should have started 30-40 years ago. Our neighbors have gone far ahead over the past time: Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, let's not even count them - there is a war there, but the yield is much higher than ours.
Why this happened, we have said many times: there are no collective farms there, but there is an owner who makes his own decision, without the chairman's instructions when to start sowing and when to finish harvesting.
Let's not forget about the difference in the level of support for agriculture. In Belarus, it exists literally as support for pants, so that unprofitable enterprises do not die. And money is not allocated for development - there is no money.
And unfortunately, decisions are made in the ministry. And here is the result.
SPK, JSC and others, in fact, the same collective farms that were before, came to the target of 10 million tons of grain after 30 years of Lukashenko's rule.
Moreover, if we remember the record grain harvest of 1986 (50.5 quintals per hectare) - it turns out that now we received even less than in the Soviet Union. We have been treading on the ground to restore what we had many years ago.
And if we evaluate what 2025 was like for Belarusian agrarians? One can recall scandals with potato shortages, onion shortages and soaring cabbage prices, "golden" tomatoes and peppers in the off-season, complaints about long frosts and summer rains, apple crop failure, in connection with which the authorities again "pardoned" Polish imports.
But at the recent awarding ceremony of the best agricultural workers Lukashenko said that "the year was very hard," but "we worked better than ever.
- I wouldn't say that the year was a failure," objected Nikolai Lysenkov. - It was the same as 5 or 10 years ago, similar weather conditions: somewhere flooded, somewhere dry. Belarus, as we remember, belongs to the zone of risky farming, but there were no catastrophic force majeure. Even, perhaps, the agrarians were lucky with the weather, since they harvested a large crop.
In my opinion, Belarusian agriculture is what the authorities call stability, but in fact, it is stagnation and lack of development. Somewhere we are rising a little higher, somewhere - a little worse.
What does not please me the most when officials report about the current good harvest is the grain surplus. This suggests that we have blighted the livestock industry. Even according to official data, cattle mortality is increasing, cattle production is unprofitable.
I think the idea to sell the grown grain to foreign markets is ineffective. It is more efficient to convert it into meat: raise poultry, cattle and export beef, pork, poultry, eggs. And even better - the final product, not even half carcasses, but sausages, for example. Spain does not sell grain and raw meat, but sells jamon all over the world and earns quite different money from its exports.
For officials, it is clear, the main thing is to report that they collected more than last year, more than the year before. But if you look at it from the outside, it is terrible to be happy that we have repeated the achievements of the past.
I would gather all the officials and ask: why haven't we gone to the level of Poland? We are at the same latitude, what prevents us from competing with Poland and not from beating ourselves forty years ago?