Damages to agriculture EUR 500 million, re-sowing vital

BELGRADE – The direct damage to agriculture is estimated at EUR 500 million and experts agreed Wednesday that it is necessary to re-sow the flooded fields as soon as possible and provide sufficient quantities of food for the surviving cattle.

Nenad Budimovic, secretary of the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS) Association for Agriculture, said that the flooding had hit the most important sector of the Serbian economy.

The goal now is to do the sowing of fields that can give yields by the fall, and to supply enough food for the animals, Budimovic said at a conference in Belgrade on the situation in Serbian agriculture after the floods, organized by Serbian agricultural journalists' association Agropress.

Zeljko Radosevic, state secretary at the Serbian Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection, said that preliminary estimates of damage were encouraging and re-sowing would be possible on 15,000 to 16,000 hectares of land.

At the moment, the priority is to provide farmers with the necessary seeds and materials as soon as possible to help them restore production within agro-technical deadlines, or by July 1, Radosevic told reporters at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce (PKS).

Radosevic called on all donors to help farmers by providing seeds, especially of early maturing corn and soybeans.
He also pointed out that quantities were now sufficient to restore production of corn on 11,000 hectares and of soybeans on 2,270 hectares of land and all the seed was ‘non-GMO’, adding that he expected the seeds would start being distributed in a few days.

Rodoljub Zivadinovic, president of the Serbian Federation of Beekeeping Organizations (SPOS), told reporters that the floods had destroyed 6,233...

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