About 85% of combine harvesters’ fleet in Belarus ready for harvesting campaign

By the end of June, about 85% of the combine harvesters of Belarus has been repaired, Natalia Bambiza, the head of the agricultural machinery fleet and technical progress department of the Belarusian Ministry of Agriculture and Foodstuffs, told BelTA. According to her, 87% of winnowing machines and 83% of roll reaping-machines have been already repaired. The readiness of the harvesting equipment is 8-12% up as against the same period last year. The Gomel, Mogilev and Brest oblasts are the leaders in this issue (the readiness of the agricultural machinery makes up from 89% to 94%). The Vitebsk oblast has repaired 75% of the combine harvesters’ fleet. The readiness of grain-cleaning units (3.4 thousand pcs.) makes up 85%. Some 93% of the grain-cleaning units of the Brest oblast are ready to receive the new crop, the Mogilev oblast – 91%. As for other regions of the country, the Gomel oblast repaired 88% of the grain-cleaning units, the Minsk oblast – 82%. There is a need to repair 21% of the units in the Grodno oblast and 24% of the units in the Vitebsk oblast. Agro-service companies have repaired 756 combine harvesters and 419 combine engines. On the whole, about 13.5 thousand combine harvesters, 3.4 thousand grain-cleaning and drying units, 8.7 thousand winnowing machines, 800 roll reaping-machines and other agricultural machinery will be used in the 2007 harvesting campaign. The agricultural companies will receive 1.5 thousand new combine harvesters, 52 new grain-cleaning and drying units will be assembled.