Snail, Crayfish And Frog Can't Save Lukashenka's Economy

Will the Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Rusy manage to start exporting exotic raw materials?

Grape snail, crayfish, bloodworm, green frog have high export potential for Belarus.

The Prime Minister Mikhail Rusy announced this during his speech in the "Parliament".

According to him, it is necessary to set up industrial breeding and sale of these exotic animal raw materials in our country.

– A bid for snails comes to 5500 denominated Belarusian rubles per kilogram at auctions – the deputy Prime Minister said.

Is it worth to invest in the production that is so unusual for Belarus?

– It's not possible to improve the agriculture by this, – the former director of the Institute of Agriculture and Breeding Mikhail Kadyrov said in an interview with the news portal Zavtra Tvoej Strany (Tomorrow of your country).

– This is an extravagant, a bit specific fun for the rich part of the population, needed, so to speak, to vary the food ration. It is unrealistic to set up the same commercial production of them as in France.

The expert notes, that green frog, grape snail, and crayfish are undoubtedly good products. However, there is no need in setting up the industrial production of these species in Belarus today.

– Such breeding could be beneficial for private farmsteads owners, at village cottages. Crayfish is an indicator of ecological purity of the water body. Crayfish appear only after rivers have been cleared to an appropriate level, – the expert says.

The former director of the Institute of Agriculture and Breeding believes that the authorities should now pay attention to the structural transformation of the agriculture.

– I have said to Lukashenka before: do not look for miracle recipes in agriculture, animal breeding, crop production, in new activities. One can find miracle recipes in the economy, in motivation. We will have nothing if we don't change the way we organize the agricultural production, – the economist emphasizes.

Otherwise, he said, we would not be able to get rid of the problems the domestic agro-industrial complex had been experiencing for the last 22 years: low profitability, mess, waste of public resources, lack of working capital.

– While there is no institutional reforms that could give rise to democracy and market and make people be their own bosses and the profit they get be their only supervisor – nothing will budge, – Mikhail Kadyrov predicts.