Some days ago, the criminal Crimean gauleiter Sergei Aksyonov said that “as a result of the 2024 harvest campaign, 1.5 million tons of grain were collected in the region,” and since this figure is clearly lower than last year’s declared 2.04 million tons of grain, the Kremlin propaganda immediately began to “correct pessimistic mood.”
The “method” chosen here would be quite simple; the aggressor simply compares everything with the situation before 2014, declaring through “Tass” that allegedly “the gross grain harvest in the republic of Crimea has increased by almost 62% since” the beginning of the occupation.
At the same time, of course, the most productive years after 2014 are compared with the least productive years before, and the “addition” of “gray” mainland grain to Crimean elevators from 2022 is completely ignored.
Let us recall that before the occupation, the record harvest in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea was considered to be that of 2011, when Crimean farmers threshed, and, naturally, without “gray” mainland grain, 1.97 million tons of grain. Therefore, if you follow the “methodology from Tass”, then you can talk about a “drop in gross harvest by 31%” under occupation, you just need to change the year of reference.
The occupiers’ reports about the alleged “growth of acreage” for grain crops, with the statement that during the 10 years of occupation in the AR of Crimea allegedly “the sown area of grain and legumes has increased by more than 30%,” look just as manipulative and often downright false.
At the same time, in June, the criminal Crimean “prime-minister” Yuri Gotsanyuk let slip that “in Crimea, farmers will have to harvest grain on an area of more than 550 thousand hectares”; well, previously the illegal “Krymstat” gave a figure for grains and legumes in 2023 of almost 580 thousand hectares, and in 2022 – only 523 thousand hectares.
In general, in 2023, the sown area of the occupied autonomy, according to Krymstat, was 825 hectares, including household plots. But in 2010, the total cultivated area of the AR of Crimea amounted to 866 thousand hectares, and of this, 684 thousand were cultivated for grains and legumes.
Therefore, it is obvious that the “fantastic harvests” from 2022 are due to both looting on the occupied continent and the principle “paper will endure anything,” which is easier for collaborators to do with tons, but a little more difficult with hectares.
According to the latter, a certain “spike” in 2023 can be explained simply – the occupiers were counting on water from the North Crimean Canal, but after they blew up the Kakhovka hydroelectric station, “agrarian optimism” had to be somewhat reduced.
