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The peasant farm of Grigory Em is one of those that has been feeding Yakutsk and its suburbs with its vegetables for 20 years. In addition to crops that are undesirable in our republic, they successfully grow 12 more southern crops – these are watermelon, melon, corn, strawberries, etc. The townspeople love to buy vegetables grown on the Yakut land with pleasure. Today Grigory Em tells us about how the economy developed, about the complex paths from aviation to the farmer.
Raised on the ground
Grigory Fedorovich Em was born in 1952 in Tashkent. Graduated from the Leningrad Aviation Academy. But he works all his life on earth.
– I always wanted to work on the land, because I grew up all my life in the countryside, my grandfather is a Hero of Socialist Labor, and my father is a holder of two Orders of Lenin, they were engaged in agriculture and taught me.
When I also matured in agriculture, my father used me in the most advanced state farm. But I decided for myself that I needed to start with a lagging state farm, and not go for a ready-made, well-established one. And he got a job at a state farm, in which, according to those Soviet money, there was a debt of 9 million rubles.
Em created his brigade and came to work. Over time, step by step, things went so well that after three years all debts were closed and the state farm began to work for profit. In words, this is easy, but in reality it turned out to be a lot and hard, without straightening your back – I went to work at 6 in the morning, and came home at 8-10 in the evening.
Successful farmer
In 1987, Grigory Em created an agricultural production association in Tashkent, which began to produce products in all regions of the country. The corporation employed three people, there was an office in the prison. But the successful businessman had to endure a complete collapse when perestroika began.
The family of Grigory Em moved to Yakutia, to the homeland of his wife Maria, whom they met while studying in Leningrad.
“I had to make a choice – to give up my enterprise and work for my uncle, or to give up everything,” Grigory says. – In the end, I arrived in Yakutia with a hundred dollars in my pocket. Even here bandits pursued me, racket flourished. It was a difficult time…
At first, they worked wherever they paid at least something – both as a seller, and as a “helper” in the Chinese market, and so on.
And then Grigory Fedorovich created a peasant economy – at first it was only three Koreans in their heads with Em himself. It was necessary to start all over again, especially since the climate in Yakutia is harsh. But Em chose his path correctly, and, perhaps, that is why the hardships never stopped, and things went uphill. The result is perseverance, fortitude and diligence.
And everything is growing in Yakutia!
At the very beginning, I had big plans, Grigory Em says. I went to see the lands in Suntarsky, Vilyuysky, Verkhnevilyuysky, Olekminsky uluses. It is warmer there than in the central regions of Yakutia. I decided that it is possible to plant here not only potatoes, but also corn, and even soybeans, which are valued all over the world.
“Of course, first of all we grew what we had grown in Yakutia before,” says the head of the Em farm. – These are potatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes. However, he also made his contribution – he brought in other types of plants. And to make it work, they began to select, experiment with tastes suitable for the region.
The farm “Em” was engaged in selection work at a serious level. Each is sorted according to a different complexity, according to the cultivation technique. Gregory’s wife, Maria, is well versed in breeding, observes painstaking work for more than one year, and faithfully works in a position to shoulder all the years of living together.
“To bring a new variety to the market is a lot of money, dollars,” she says. – Therefore, at some point there was a need to work in this area. Unfortunately, in the 1990s, no attention was paid to agriculture, let alone the selection of varieties. It is a pity that over the years we have destroyed the domestic selection, where there were prospects and successes. I am glad that in recent years, finally, the state has thought about food security and the revival of this industry is beginning. Breeding is the foundation of the economy and requires the investment of minerals – food, scientific, etc.
Ema’s legendary watermelons
Every year you will not surprise anyone with watermelons – there are a lot of them on the trade market, and they are bought up well. Customers choose local watermelon due to the fact that, oddly enough, it is much tastier than imported.
“The fact is that our watermelon is grown in environmentally friendly conditions,” says Em. – In Yakutia, diseases that occur in crops simply disappear due to high temperatures. Therefore, we have much less of them. And, of course, we choose the best varieties. The best sorted watermelon is “Sorrento”, it is sweet, although small in size, and retains its palatability for a long time. Now we are still growing “Crimson Sweet” – these watermelons are much larger, they do not meet the taste.
The cost of loss of products in comparison with the imported value is 20 rubles. But they buy it well, for example, there are not enough watermelons for everyone every year.
Farmed and imported watermelons have little taste because they are shipped underripe and ripen on the way, says Em. In addition, they often have to be sprayed with pesticides. For example, in order to grow sweeteners in the body, it is necessary to treat it with pesticides from worms and butterflies at least 10 times a season, and in Yakutia – only three times, and even two – if the summer is cool.
“We are accused at one time of pumping our products with saltpeter, this is ridiculous, I don’t have enough money for this,” the farmer laughs. – Nature itself disinfects everything here. When the politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky came to Yakutia, he tried our watermelons and has ordered them from us more than once since then.
Strawberries on an industrial scale
The whole family of Grigory Em is employed in the household. The successors of the business are two sons and a daughter. Arthur Em, the son of Gregory, decided to go further, not stopping there, and tried to plant strawberries. This idea has been successfully implemented.
“This year we planted strawberries on 0.8 hectares,” says Grigory. – It bears fruit all summer. We specifically choose such tastes that give the berry gradually, and not all at once, and then this volume is well bought up. Moreover, they buy well not only the berry itself, but also seedlings.
The farmer tells how he saw seedlings in the market in 2002 – one flower cost 90 rubles. He began to grow and sell his seedlings for 20 rubles. Now only flowers are grown in agriculture – tens of thousands.
Straight from the garden
For the second decade, the inhabitants of Yakutsk have been distinguished by the agricultural fair of the “Em” farm, located at 13 km of the Namsky tract.
The difference between this market and other markets in the city is that here you can buy vegetables of different varieties, the assortment here is richer than in the city.
“All this is grown right here, in the fields,” Grigory Fedorovich shows the fields spreading out by hand behind the counter. – In the morning we pick vegetables on the field and immediately sell them here. Watermelon, melon are grown here on the vine. You can buy corn from us now, however, while one variety has ripened, then it will be even later. By the way, we have corn costs 250 rubles per kilogram, while in Sochi one cob costs 200 rubles.
Here are different flavors of tomatoes, dill, herbs, zucchini, pumpkin. If there is a lot of pulp in the “Bull’s Heart” (sorted tomatoes), then in “Verliok” there are a lot of seeds, and “Cherry” is more suitable for preservation. Choose komuy, as they say, what you need.
Here’s a sorted Sorrento watermelon – the first ovary doesn’t grow very large, Em says. The second ovary, closer to autumn, is already much larger. But watermelons of the Crimson Sweet variety weigh 10-12 kilograms, and are just as sweet. Pumpkin is currently very popular among the population, it has a lot of useful vitamins. Also on the shelves all varieties of cabbage.
Develop agriculture
Planting agriculture is currently on 70 hectares, whereas before they had access to 200 hectares. The question arises why? Products are in demand, there is not enough of them for everyone – expand production.
– An increase in hectares can only be if there is a state order, – says Em. – Controllers we send to the northern regions, now there are fewer and fewer.
So, word by word, we begin a conversation about the development of agriculture in the republic and the country as a whole.
– I believe that Russia can feed the whole world, – says Grigory Em. We have a lot of fertile land, and we can do it. We have a developed economy thanks to government support – we are very well developed in the Ministry of Development. In the current conditions, it is necessary to develop animal husbandry, and for this we need a forage base. But she did not develop: as we fed with roughage, we still feed her. If this situation breaks in the bud, we will see a different result.
This is the opinion of a person who feeds more than one thousand people with his work, has behind him the experience of working on the ground in different regions. In the coming of food security, which is now more relevant than ever, the experience and opinion of such people is simply priceless.