Your trusted source

“There is no doubt some Azerbaijani officials’ simply mock ordinary people. They even don’t try to hide that. On the contrary, the actions and statements of these officials illustrate how far they stand from the real life of ordinary people. They simply enjoy the benefits of living in their fantasy world, moreover, they live in that luxury at the expense of the people they ignore,” Azerbaijani news portal Vesti.az reports.

As it is stated in the article the end of 2013 in Azerbaijan has been marked with rise in fuel prices and increased salaries of deputies and judges. Some Azerbaijani deputies even made attempts to justify increase in fuel prices by ridiculous statements: “this action will result in traffic jam reduction.” Of course, nothing of a kind happen.

“Ordinary people with honor endured increase of fuel prices and “to spite” the Tariff Council officials continued to drive cars, preferring to cut their family budgets but not to use public transport. The grievance of people didn’t last long. Apparently, the fact frustrated the officials and they devised a new trial,” the article says.

The author posits that according to local officials, the Azerbaijani people eat a lot and are overwhelmingly fat. “In a word, their brains are soaked in fat which negatively affects the level of education of population. Thus, the officials came up with an ingenious idea to end the problem once and for all,” the article reads.

“It appears that the Azerbaijanis make an excessive use of meat. It turned out that we have such a great amount of meat that it’s time to get rid of it. And never mind that there are lot of families who for many months encounter meat only by TV, our statistics show the opposite. And now, apparently, based on our statistics, the best statistics of the world, there are talks in Azerbaijan about the need to reduce the number of cattle,” writes the author, noting that he came to that conclusion based on the words of Chingiz Farajev, the department head of Ministry of Agriculture in Azerbaijan.

Farajev declared that livestock sector in Azerbaijan has been developing extensively. Currently the amount of cattle in the country is 2,712 million. However, there is no need to keep such a large number of animals.

The official noted that there is little land and feed in Azerbaijan; consequently it is necessary to cut the number of animals and in parallel raise their productivity. “We should receive 2500kg of milk yearly from cows and buffaloes. We must reduce the number of cattle to 1.8 million,” said Farajev.

In connection with this statement the author mockingly observes; “I knew that such an excessive economic growth wouldn’t lead to anything good. We appear so ahead of the rest of the planet that now we don’t know what to do with additional meat. In principle, if unlike the world we have a meat surplus then to strengthen the image of Azerbaijan in international arena, we could send humanitarian aid to the starving in Somalia, Uganda and Nigeria.”

The author wonders whether the officials of Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture are aware of the prices of beef. “If not, I’ll inform them. The price of one kilogram of normal beef is 10 manat ($12, 7 – edt.). Now, imagine what would happen if the number of cattle is reduced thrice. The price of beef would also increase thrice, and at best would reach 13 manat ($16,5 – edt.). But taking into account that our officials are able to count only including their profit, it can be stated that the price would reach 15 manat ($19 –edt.),” the article reads.

Referring to the Azerbaijani statistics, which local officials are fond of, the author notes that in Azerbaijan every person annually consumes an average of 33.2 kg of meat, 250 kg of milk and 133 units of eggs. However, according to WHO’s recommendations meat consumption per capita per year should be 70.1 kg, milk- 359.9 kg and eggs - 243 units.

“In other words, we have a lack of 36.9 kg of meat, 110 eggs and 109.9 kg of milk. But in case the above mentioned wise decision would be implemented, “fattened” Azerbaijanis, who were consuming meat excessively, would correct their figures.
Instead, we would drink a lot of milk. For the victory of vegetarianism in Azerbaijan! And why on earth we need meat, it is said that meat consumption contributes to early ageing, but we need to stay young to be able to catch up and overtake decaying Norway and Switzerland,” “Vesti.az” reports.

Note, that according to the data of Azerbaijani Ministry of Agriculture meat consumption in Azerbaijan equals to 288 thousand tones, or 30,8kg per citizen of the republic (assuming the officially stated number of population). It is noteworthy that according to National Statistical Service of Armenia, meat consumption in the country in 2012 amounted to 136,5million tones (fish not included). In per capita terms, this amounts to 45,5kg of meat per year, which is 47% more than in Azerbaijan.