Every time when I collect 50-60 kilos of apricot per day from my orchard trees and the ground, in addition to preparing jam, compote, dried fruit, juice, vodka ‘semi-finished product’, we distribute to all relatives and acquaintances who want it, I remember … the Karabakh movement. Do you remember the time when it was said from the tribune at the Liberty Square that we, having no natural gas and oil, would keep our country with “Jermuk.” Then, during the first years of independence the life drastically worsened, opposition orators and newspapers have repeatedly reminded about it to “the country plunderer” and “factories closed” ANM, as if saying see they are not only deficient and thief-robber, but also cherished programs and give promises which are a lie and far from being a reality. Well, the opposition campaign has not been changed in 20 years, but now I look at the problems of “Jermuk” and the rest of our “possessions” differently.
If apricots in Armenia cost a maximum of AMD 100, and, let’s say, in Russia at least AMD 1000, then most likely, it can be extremely effective business. Why is it not done? Why do the farmers stand in line for days near the processing plants, while the harvest during these days gets spoilt and dumped away? The Ministry of Agriculture, like all government agencies, presents pink images with interests and in numbers, “steady increases” and so on. But we do know the truth, and the spoiling process of the harvest is carried out in front of our eyes.
It is, of course, impossible to ‘keep the country’ with only “Jermuk”, the only fresh water or with only pomegranate. But instead of groaning all the time about the lack of gas and oil, it is possible to sum up what we have and to use our goods efficiently and effectively. ”
Keeping the country” is not only attaching to the budget, but, for example, paying the farmers for their crops so that they can get proper compensation for their sweat and live in more or less tolerable conditions. To keep the country, in the first place, means to keep people on their land.
Read also
Why don’t we have 10 “Spayka”s, or, better to say, a company that is powerful than 10 “Spayka”s? Why don’t we have some hundreds of small processing companies that can be established by the efforts of the farmers? The answer, apparently, is in the defects of the political system and the monopolies arising therefrom.
If the farmers do not queue for days at the door of the suppliers, but on the contrary, it is likely that we will talk less about the geographic location and the gas.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
