Kalistani Major History

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Incoming Ag Minister Rosa Fernandes to open Mainland Ag Initiative
Pledges to work with Governing Partners to improve Mainland Agriculture and Infrastructure
Eshar Odufaray
September 3, 5057


Agriculture minister Rosa Fernandes meets with Folkparty Representatives at Odufaray KGS offices

The new Minister of Food and Agriculture Rosa Fernandes has pledged to work with the Folksparty on new initiatives to improve agriculture and infrastructure in the Mainland Districts.

"We really could benefit from an upgrade in our farming techniques here in Odufaray especially," said Fernandes. "While the Growers' Syndicate here has been serving the Republic well to keep the Food Bank stocked, and to continue to create export crops, practices and methods have advanced and now we stand to benefit from the developments not only in planting and harvesting methods, but also with new developments of agronomy, aimed at bringing more marginal land under cultivation for a wider variety of crops, both to continue to diversify the Kalistani plate, and to create opportunities for new exports."

The Minister has noted that the creation of co-ops will ensure less competition among smaller farmers, and a someone more intelligent and organized national farming industry. "Far too often, farmers watch consumer trends, and then switch crops away from lower paying cereals and staple crops to higher paying specialty crops which their land is not necessarily the best to produce, or adequately watered, or whatever. This creates unnecessarily wild swings in farm prices, gluts in produce for which there is little real demand, or for which demand has already been satisfied, and little reliability on the external market. The Syndicate has made some effort to limit this sort of boom bust behavior, but there is no cap on the demand side which would further stabilize prices and ensure a steady income for Kalistani farmers."

The Infrastructure Minister, who issued a statement through the Ag Minister additionally pledged to build more farm roads and cargo rail between heavily concentrated farming regions, primarily in Odufaray, southern Vrassa and inland Suldanor, and ports at Sulari, Eshar and Port Swedes. "Greater infrastructure will aid in getting our food and produce to market much more efficiently," said Fernandes. "This will save farmers time and fuel costs: If you can take your harvest 10 miles to the co-op and sell it there, rather than having to arrange transport to one of the depots sometimes hundreds of miles away." The Minister said that new Infrastructure will be assigned to the NSP within six months, and will be based on the needs of communities and farmers' co-ops, with whom they will coordinate in the planning phase.