The Ministry of Agriculture calculated the food assistance program and refused to launch it due to lack of money

The head of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation, Alexander Tkachev, said that the department estimated the cost of the food assistance program for low-income citizens at 40 billion rubles, but is not yet ready to launch it due to lack of funds. RIA Novosti writes about this.

At a meeting of the agrarian committee of the Federation Council, Tkachev said that the Ministry of Agriculture is interested in launching a food aid program in order, on the one hand, “to help low-income segments of the population, and on the other hand, to stimulate production growth.”

“Again the problem is lack of funds. We calculated that the program would cost about 40 billion rubles. We’ll do it as soon as we’re richer,” he added.

In 2015, the Ministry of Industry and Trade estimated the creation of the food aid program at 240 billion rubles, and the number of participants at 15-16 million people. Later, the ministry presented a different estimate: in 2017, it was planned to allocate 70 billion rubles to the program, payments could amount to 1.4 thousand rubles per month. The number of participants was estimated at 20 million people.

In addition, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed distributing electronic food buyer cards to low-income citizens, to which money will be credited for the purchase of certain products. Only domestic products can be purchased with this card.

The charitable organization “Food Fund “Rus””, the first food bank in Russia, distributed 3.2 thousand tons of food free of charge to low-income families and other needy people from 80 regions of Russia in the first half of 2016 .

Charity store "Thank you!" and the Food Sharing movement on November 13 opened the first public refrigerator in Russia, in which you can put food or take it from there for free. A day later, Rospotrebnadzor sealed it, saying that the work of such a project is a serious violation, since no one monitors the quality of the food that citizens leave in the refrigerator.