MAKHACHKALA, September 26 – RIA Dagestan. Dagestan State Agrarian University convened an international scientific and practical conference focused on innovative development pathways for land reclamation and irrigated agriculture. Commemorating six decades of large-scale land reclamation efforts, the forum attracted a wide array of stakeholders, including government officials, reclamation experts, farm directors and international specialists from Azerbaijan and Belarus.
Key discussions during the plenary and specialized sessions centered on optimizing water resource management, rehabilitating degraded soils, fighting desertification and integrating climate-adaptive technologies into modern farming practices.
Addressing the conference participants, Dagestan's First Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Food, Sharip Sharipov, stressed the critical role of land reclamation in sustaining the agro-industrial complex and ensuring food security in the regional predominantly arid regions.
As to the top official, the length of the growing season has increased by 20 to 30 days over the last three decades, facilitating earlier harvests, broader crop diversity and the introduction of double-cropping practices at higher elevations. Stressing the urgent need to adapt agricultural technologies and implement moisture-saving practices in response to these agroclimatic shifts, Sharipov formulated practical modernization guidelines for the land reclamation complex in Southern Russia.