Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has proposed allocating additional funds to agricultural producers to buy fertilizers and carry out spring sowing.

"We have already implemented a serious package of measures. Some 40 billion rubles [$1.3 bln] was allocated to agroindustrial sector enterprises from the federal budget," Putin said at an agricultural conference on Friday.

"I propose sending at least 1 billion rubles [$33 mln] to the enterprises to buy fertilizers... I propose additionally allocating 1 billion rubles as a subsidy to carry out spring sowing, including purchases of seeds," he said.

Agricultural producers were hard hit by this past summer`s unprecedented heat wave.

The Russian Agriculture Ministry estimated that severe drought and forest fires had destroyed over 13 million hectares of the country`s grain crop.

As a result, the Kremlin banned grain exports, triggering a domestic and global rise in grain prices.
sections: Society, Economics