Minister: 10-12% of cultivated land monitored every year

Approximately 10-12% of declared cultivated land is included in the monitoring process each year based on risk criteria, Azerbaijani Agriculture Minister Majnun Mammadov told journalists, Report informs.

The minister said that monitoring helps identify cases involving land that has not been cultivated, land cultivated in the wrong location, inaccurately declared areas, and incorrectly reported production volumes.

"Once such violations are identified, penalties are imposed in accordance with internal regulations, depending on the extent of the deviation. These may involve penalties equivalent to one or two years, while subsidies are withheld for the current year and farmers are also deprived of subsidies for the following two years.

Looking at the overall experience of recent years, approximately 10-12% of cultivated land is monitored annually, and deviations are identified in 8-10% of those cases. Appropriate penalties are imposed for these deviations, and subsidy payments are suspended in subsequent years," he added.

Mammadov emphasized that one of the significant innovations introduced this year and set to continue in the coming years is the use of satellite technology for direct monitoring and oversight.

"This makes it possible to eliminate risks associated with human factors and similar issues. The main challenge we face concerns discrepancies in the coordinates of declared plots.

We understand that farmers sometimes genuinely carry out cultivation, but we find that the coordinates of the land they have cultivated do not fully match those recorded in their property documents. Such cases are investigated and examined individually on site.

"If there is no significant discrepancy, we, of course, approve their subsidy payments, taking into account coordinate deviations within the 10-20% range," the minister noted.