Governor of Chelyabinsk Region Petr Sumin met heads of the region’s municipalities to discuss the performance of agricultural cooperatives in the region.

The region’s Minister for Agriculture Ivan Feklin said there were twenty-one cooperatives in the area (and six new ones on the way) dealing in the purchases of milk, meat, potatoes, and vegetables. Some of them also processed the foods with machinery.

Chairman of the local cooperatives community Josef Ashkinadze said they had a special development plan for 2008-2012, with focus on processing of foods. For one, ten meat-processing shops were set up and delivered 50 tons of prefabricated meat in 2008 alone. Their produce is reported to enjoy good demand, so more shops will be introduced soon in order to process up to 2,200 tons of meat a year and to supply the shops’ produce to large regional chain stores.

At the end of the meeting, the Governor asked his deputy Yuri Klepov to keep an eye on the cooperatives’ efficiency.

‘We need to make these cooperatives more effective and make sure they have their place on the market. The purchasing prices need to go up in order for us to offer better terms to farmers. These are the farmers who produce 60% of the regional milk and 36% of meat, and the cooperatives must help the food producers sell their goods,’ he said.

This information was provided by the spokesperson for the Governor of Chelyabinsk Region.