BELARUSTV — broadcast
20261029 000000 UTC
205 transcript segments
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[00:00:01] This tells us that the cessation of nutrient outflow
[00:00:05] from the plant into the cob itself has already begun. In principle,
[00:00:08] everything that has formed, has formed, and can be harvested for grain.
[00:00:12] Generally, close attention is paid to the development of domestic breeding, and it's understandable, because providing
[00:00:15] for one's own seeds is not only import substitution but also a matter
[00:00:19] of food security. At the field of the Zhodino Scientific and Practical Center,
[00:00:23] about a thousand hybrids are grown, both imported and
[00:00:26] domestic, and technologies are being perfected. compare this little cob, where
[00:00:31] the milk flows, right, and this one, where the milk doesn't flow,
[00:00:34] I can't squeeze it out, that is,
[00:00:38] you understand, for grain it's unprofitable, it increases moisture,
[00:00:41] but it doesn't increase the yield, it's better to have one large
[00:00:44] cob,
[00:00:48] if you take European hybrids, then they, due to
[00:00:51] rapid moisture release, rapid accumulation of dry matter in
[00:00:55] the grain, that is, there is an outflow of nutrients from
[00:00:59] the leaf-stem... we have a cob and the cow at the feeding table starts
[00:01:02] picking out the grains, the stem that is already coarse, that is not
[00:01:06] nutritious, she doesn't want to eat it, Belarusian hybrids do not have
[00:01:10] such qualities, they do not pump, for silage this is an advantage,
[00:01:14] today we set the tasks of obtaining grain. In Belarus,
[00:01:17] about 200 hybrids are sown annually, 55%
[00:01:21] of them are domestic, and there are 17 in the register. The novelty of this
[00:01:25] season was Vevalent 1322. The main
[00:01:28] advantage is rapid ripening. resistance to weather whims,
[00:01:32] as Belarusian scientists claim, in terms of productivity, domestic
[00:01:35] breeding can compete with more than thirty foreign
[00:01:39] companies. No other crop has such an indicator, but it is worth
[00:01:43] noting that the work on creating any variety lasts about
[00:01:46] 10 years, and breeding in Belarus began only in
[00:01:50] ninety-three. The seeds of hybrids are always more expensive than
[00:01:53] the seeds of varieties. In order to obtain the parental
[00:01:57] form, it takes many, many years.
[00:02:00] self-pollination, and we get these
[00:02:03] cobs at the output.
[00:02:06] The yield of the parental form, of course, is much lower than that of hybrid
[00:02:10] F1, but nevertheless, when crossing two parental forms, we get
[00:02:14] a heterotic hybrid at the output,
[00:02:17] which demonstrates high yield and high
[00:02:20] grain quality.
[00:02:22] In Belarus,
[00:02:27] three corn calibration plants produce hybrid seeds,
[00:02:31] purchase parental forms, grow them in the field, and obtain
[00:02:34] F1 hybrid, a familiar cob to our eyes. In total, they are
[00:02:38] capable of producing up to 30,000 tons of corn
[00:02:41] seeds, which is almost 70% of
[00:02:43] the need.
[00:02:49] When our film crew arrived at the site, the territory of the plant was already
[00:02:53] bathed in the glow of the setting sun, but the production lines
[00:02:56] inside continued to move. Corn calibration
[00:03:00] in Vovotsevichi works 24/7 during the hot season
[00:03:03] from August to April. The start is always with the laboratory. A car
[00:03:07] arrives, we go, select cobs,
[00:03:10] weigh 70 pieces,
[00:03:13] separate the leaves, weigh the leaves, then
[00:03:16] a laboratory assistant comes here and calculates the impurity
[00:03:20] and moisture content here using a formula. We also need
[00:03:24] to check for brittleness along the cob, two or three
[00:03:28] rows, and bring it... here and do a second
[00:03:31] analysis. In the receiving department, the corn is cleaned of
[00:03:34] leaves and goes to the sorting table, where it is manually
[00:03:38] refined, residues and atypical cobs are removed, and
[00:03:41] complete cobs go to the drying department. At this
[00:03:44] stage, the cameras are being unloaded after
[00:03:48] drying. These cobs are dried to
[00:03:51] a certain moisture content,
[00:03:53] 13%, ready for shelling
[00:03:56] the grain. The cob arrives on this belt.
[00:04:13] In November, the plant begins calibrating seeds, separating the planting material into fractions of the same size, weight, and
[00:04:17] volume. All this is for uniform germination in the fields.
[00:04:21] This year, nine
[00:04:22] hybrids were grown.
[00:04:28] As reported, this season, corn was supplied with
[00:04:32] moisture in most of the territories, only in the southern
[00:04:35] regions did it partially suffer from soil drought. As for
[00:04:38] global trends, Brazil increased corn harvesting to 115 million
[00:04:42] tons and ranked second in the world in exports. According to
[00:04:46] Eurostat, the Garden of Eden this year faced the worst corn
[00:04:50] harvest for grain in two decades. The gross
[00:04:53] harvest was 12% less than in 2025.
[00:04:57] The reason is extreme drought.
[00:05:03] The land is not always generous with harvests, but in Belarus, even sandy soils
[00:05:07] are made to work for food security. This is
[00:05:10] confirmed by a large-scale experiment: at the experimental field of the
[00:05:14] Dzerzhinsky agro-combine, it was divided into six plots, and different
[00:05:18] combinations of fertilizers were applied to each, comparing the yield. The best
[00:05:21] was where organic matter was mixed with sludge,
[00:05:25] which is waste from potash fertilizer production. This waste
[00:05:28] gives results, which means there are useful
[00:05:31] substances and not a few for plants, so I
[00:05:34] suspect that maybe these mountains will be taken away for free
[00:05:38] and applied, especially in the south.
[00:05:41] starting with less fertile land. And if the question arises
[00:05:44] why so much attention is paid to corn, here are the facts: in
[00:05:47] June 2026, the average daily milk yield in Belarus first
[00:05:51] exceeded 20 liters per cow. Our country is the largest
[00:05:54] player in the global dairy market, and the level
[00:05:58] of self-sufficiency in "white gold" has reached 300%.
[00:06:01] Such indicators are partly due to the development of fodder production, so
[00:06:04] it turns out, partly thanks to corn. It occupies a large part of
[00:06:08] the diet of cattle in terms of cost-effectiveness, energy
[00:06:12] nutritional value, and potential yield, the queen of the fields
[00:06:16] surpasses all fodder grain crops. And these are already shots from the southern
[00:06:30] part of the country. Pinsk district, Pochapovo farm,
[00:06:33] peat-bog soils, ameliorated lands,
[00:06:36] corn was sown on more than 1,800 hectares,
[00:06:39] about 100 for grain. To please the queen of the fields, every year
[00:06:42] an unspoken agreement is signed with the heavenly office. We have
[00:06:46] little moisture for 2 years, precisely here in Pinsk, so
[00:06:50] peat bogs, of course, in terms of their moisture supply,
[00:06:53] win in comparison with mineral
[00:06:56] soils, so this year our yield of corn on peat
[00:07:00] bogs is significantly higher. If we take an average of
[00:07:04] about 210 centners, here on
[00:07:06] these types of soils it's 300-350
[00:07:10] yield. In the diet of livestock, corn occupies about
[00:07:13] 40%, the main source of energy and starch,
[00:07:17] which are necessary for high productivity and rapid weight
[00:07:20] gain. And also, the farm has developed a formula: the cow gives more
[00:07:23] milk if corn is combined with alfalfa. With the help of this
[00:07:27] line, we create these granules, which are
[00:07:30] added to corn silage
[00:07:33] and fed to cows. We bring here an average of
[00:07:37] 20 tons of alfalfa per day.
[00:07:40] At the output, 50-60%, that is, plus or minus 10
[00:07:44] tons of already prepared compressed
[00:07:48] feed, which can be stored for a year.
[00:07:52] This year, our task is 40,000 tons of high-quality
[00:07:55] silage. Corn comes from the field here,
[00:07:58] we prepare silage according to technological
[00:08:01] regulations, we fully observe everything, cutting length,
[00:08:04] grain crushing, tamping,
[00:08:07] covering.
[00:08:10] Here we have a mixture of haylage, silage, concentrates,
[00:08:13] herbal granules. With the use of herbal
[00:08:16] granules, we increased milk yield over the past year by
[00:08:19] 5%. In Belarus, sweet corn is also grown, this
[00:08:23] year about 150 hectares in the territory of canneries
[00:08:27] and farms. It is a familiar product in stores, as well as
[00:08:30] a subject of
[00:08:32] dispute.
[00:08:49] 25 years ago, to prepare corn, one had to
[00:08:52] perform a whole ritual of taming the queen of the fields
[00:08:55] with boiling water. Today, the recipes are simplified and
[00:08:58] suggest boiling corn for 15 minutes, grilling it
[00:09:02] for five, or simply salting young corn
[00:09:06] and eating it raw. But has corn really changed,
[00:09:09] or is it something else? The answer is...
[00:09:13] This corn is sweet corn, and in
[00:09:16] the Soviet period, we ate fodder corn,
[00:09:19] which is now given only to animals. The corn that
[00:09:23] we have growing in our fields now, if you boil it, it will also
[00:09:26] boil for more than an hour, because
[00:09:30] there are
[00:09:32] different varieties, different directions of use.
[00:09:36] We still use corn for
[00:09:38] obtaining fodder and succulent feeds for...
[00:10:12] In Moldova, a thick porridge made from cornmeal, Mamaliga, is a national
[00:10:16] dish. Its analogue is the symbol of northern Italy,
[00:10:19] Polenta. In African countries, cornmeal puree replaces
[00:10:22] bread. In Belarusian restaurants, golden grains are served
[00:10:26] as a side dish. We have a lunch menu, they serve
[00:10:29] grilled vegetables, so there's corn, and pepper,
[00:10:33] and some zucchini. A good combination is spices, that's
[00:10:36] when sweet paprika is used, some spicy
[00:10:40] pepper, and for example, with a little lime
[00:10:43] juice. Raw materials from the golden crop are used in the production
[00:10:46] of starch, groats, flour, biofuels. Corn
[00:10:50] silks and stigmas are widely used in medicine. Also, based on
[00:10:53] the queen of the fields, paper, glue, alcoholic
[00:10:56] beverages, oil, sugar substitutes, flakes,
[00:11:00] and sweets are made.
[00:11:07] The main gastronomic delicacy of several generations, corn
[00:11:10] sticks, has been produced in Lida for over 50
[00:11:14] years. New flavors appear, but the technology has been preserved since
[00:11:17] sixty-seventh, and to get the familiar sweetness from
[00:11:20] corn grits, the raw material goes through several stages. Before
[00:11:24] the start of production, the grits are sieved and
[00:11:28] magnetically separated. The prepared grits are mixed with water
[00:11:31] and salt and fed into the heart of this section,
[00:11:34] the extruder. In parallel with the preparation of the semi-finished product of corn
[00:11:38] sticks, the preparation of sugar
[00:11:40] syrup takes place.
[00:11:44] A certain amount of semi-finished product, sticks,
[00:11:48] is fed into each coating drum, the syrup is mixed with
[00:11:51] the sticks, and warm air is supplied here for drying
[00:11:55] the finished product, which then goes to
[00:11:58] packaging.
[00:12:05] We produce quite a lot of corn sticks, in one shift we get
[00:12:09] about 17
[00:12:12] boxes of crispy snacks. An interesting fact, if you stack
[00:12:15] these boxes one on top of the other, then in one shift it will be approximately a 100-story
[00:12:19] building. The assortment includes 19 types of products made from
[00:12:22] corn grits: sticks, snacks, popcorn. In 2000
[00:12:26] and six, we shipped corn sticks
[00:12:30] and popcorn to 14
[00:12:32] countries for export. The main markets are the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan,
[00:12:36] Azerbaijan, Georgia, Uzbekistan,
[00:12:38] Turkmenistan. There were deliveries to Germany, Canada,
[00:12:42] the Kingdom of Bahrain. And yet, despite the convoluted paths,
[00:12:45] Belarusian farms, together with scientists, are finding a way out of the agricultural
[00:12:49] labyrinth. Thanks to the dictatorship of technology and love for the land,
[00:12:52] corn today is gold in the fields, which not only
[00:12:56] provides feed for livestock, but also helps to ensure
[00:12:59] food security.