Agriculture Minister comments on agrarian movement

The Russian agrarian movement is not a political party, the press secretaryof Alexey Gordeyev, Russian Minister of Agriculture, said in an interviewwith RBC citing the Minister's statement made at the first meeting of theorganization in the city of Volosovo. Currently Gordeyev is on a workingvisit to the Leningrad region. This public association will be officiallyregistered in September 2002. It will provide lobbying of interests ofrepresentatives of the Russian agrarian sector, including thefood-processing industry. At present the number of people employed atenterprises of the agricultural industry is about 35m. Offices of theorganization have been established practically in all regions and republicsof the Russian Federation. In the future the movement is expected tocooperate actively with the Agrarian party..