On June 20, Artsakh Republic State Minister Gurgen Nersisyan called a meeting on ensuring food safety and economy work under the existing conditions. The Minister of Agriculture, Georgi Hayriyan, presented the situation related to domestic food production, the possibilities of meat production, the preparations for harvesting autumn crops, and the production volumes of spring and greenhouse farms and related issues. Other officials also made speeches.

The State Minister, referring to the fact that the limited humanitarian cargo transportation of Artsakh, which is under a six-month blockade, has been completely blocked by Azerbaijan from June 15, in particular, stated:

“Even though we are under siege since December 12, 2022, however, during that time, with very few opportunities, we have been able to improve our food security level. Because of this, we now have a greater degree of resilience. There is no need to panic. Of course, we will have a feeling of shortage regarding this or that type of product, we already have a problem with sugar and oil. We have opportunities for critical moments, but we will not resort to their use now. We have a stable situation in terms of flour and other basic necessities.”

Attaching importance to proper communication with the public, Gurgen Nersisyan emphasized that food safety is one of the main topics of public concern, but, on the other hand, it is not possible to talk about it in a completely open way, because it is related to issues of security importance. The State Minister emphasized that the existing very limited fuel reserves should be used sparingly and in case of necessity.

“For this purpose, we have reduced fuel consumption by the state system to almost zero, we will try to organize the work of public transport and agricultural works. Fuel is provided to physical persons mainly for issues related to health problems and subjecting each individual case to a separate study,” said G. Nersisyan.

During the consultation, the problems of the created situation and ways of solving them were discussed. The State Minister gave a number of instructions to quickly develop and implement such programs that will allow to collect all domestic resources, collect the domestic product and organize its equal distribution and realization.