Kazakhstan believes in future of organic agriculture

Hence, given the huge territory, soil and climatic conditions of Kazakhstan and growing demand for organic products, investment in organic agriculture could be quite profitable. Moreover, given the comparative advantages in the agricultural sector overall, low labor costs and opportunities for trade with China and Russia, organic agriculture is seen right now as an untapped export potential.

Potential

Kazakhstan has a large area of agricultural land that enables production of organic products and has sufficient socio-economic potential to develop an organic market. According to the Kazakh Research Institute of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, the area of arable land that complies with the requirements of the organic production is 13.6 million hectares. Also, more than 70 percent of pastures are viable for producing ecological products of cattle, sheep and horse origin.

According to the same Institute there are around 29 manufacturers of organic products and 19 companies are certified for processing, storage, transportation and other operations with organic products. The production of organic products is about 300 thousand tons, of which 62 thousand tons (10 million US dollar) is exported to countries like the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia and Ukraine.

Institutional development

In Kazakhstan there are two authorities that are in charge for the development of organic agriculture; the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry for Investment and Development. The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for developing the strategy and implementation plans for the development of the organic agriculture. The Ministry for Investment and Development is focused on the development of technical regulations and in particular on the development and adoption of required standards.

On the first of May 2018, the following standards have been put into effect in Kazakhstan:

• ST RK 3109-2017 “Organic products”. National mark of conformity of organic products. Technical requirements and order of labeling of organic products. This standard establishes technical requirements for the national sign of conformity of organic production, as well as the procedure for labeling organic products.
• ST RK 3110-2017 “Conformity assessment”. Requirements for entities to confirm the conformity of the production of organic products and the organic products themselves.
• ST RK 3111-2017 “Organic products”. Requirements for the production process. This standard specifies the requirements for the production of organic products of plant and animal origin and the requirements for the processing, packaging, storage and transportation of organic products.

The institutions listed below represent the entities that urge the government to adopt the legislation required for the inspection and certification of organic products and actively promote the organic agriculture in Kazakhstan:

• Kazakhstan Research Institute for the Economy of the Agro-Industrial Complex and Development of Agricultural Territories;
• Kazakhstan Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements “KazFOAM”;
• The Coalition for the Green Economy and Development of the G-Global;
• Public Union “Association of the Organic Farming”;
• Non-commercial organization “International Academy of Environment”;
• Public Fund “Organic Kazakhstan”;
• Public Fund “ECO standard”.

Furthermore, there are several international organizations that promote the development of organic agriculture in Kazakhstan, including FAO, OSCE, UNDP, SGP GEF, Kazakh-German Agrarian and Political Dialogue.

Legislation 

Kazakhstan applies standards and regulations to organic food that is both imported and locally produced.

Import: certificate of inspection of the exporting country is the requirement for imported products marked as “ECO”, “BIO” or “Organic”, and the importer must keep this certificate at least for two years. This requirement is also included in the Codex Alimentarius, which is applied by Kazakhstan within the framework of its WTO membership. However, it is at this moment not quite clear for entrepreneurs whether this Codex has direct effect or if relevant domestic legislation should be adopted. The National Chamber of Entrepreneurs will clarify this question with relevant public authorities. 

Domestic Production: there is a newly adopted Law on “The production of organic products” which includes general provisions. However, the law does not cover inspection and certification of organic products. Public authorities, like the Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture together with the Research Institute on the Economy of the Agro-Industrial Complex, are jointly working on the adopting of relevant legislation for inspection and certification of the products.

Current practices

There are horticultural growers (open field and greenhouse production) and cattle farms that produce according to organic standards and export their products. But their products cannot be labelled ‘organic’ due to the absence of local organic certification procedure. The farmers’ business partners (importers) conduct spot checks on the production in Kazakhstan. They require all relevant documentation on ingredients and input materials used during the production process: for example safety certificates and documents of origin and conformity. Farms that pay attention to their reputation and are not willing to lose customers keep all production cycles and technologies proper and well documented. Their products are of good quality, though they do not have an ‘organic’ stamp on their products. 

Some large Western producers of organic food and importers of agricultural products from Kazakhstan fill up a gap in certification by bringing companies authorized to issue EU organic certification to certify products in Kazakhstan. However, the certification of organic products does not yet exist on the domestic market and is not regulated by the national authorities in Kazakhstan. In fact, an importer brings its own organic certification company from the EU or uses services of any other EU certification company already operating in Kazakhstan. At the moment, the organic certification companies can undertake their activities freely, but the legislation may be subject to change.

Certification of organic products

The national system for certification of organic production has not yet been formed in Kazakhstan, since there are no basic elements of the system of guarantees in this area, such as accreditation and standards (standards were put into effect in May 2018). Therefore, at present, Kazakhstan agricultural producers turn to foreign certification bodies to obtain organic certification. They are certified according to the target market: under the terms of EU Regulation 834/07 and 834/08 for exporting products to the European market or under the terms of the NOP for exporting products to the North American market.

At present there are about 10 European control authorities accredited for inspection and the issuing of certificates of manufactured products according to EU regulations. The following certification entities are currently providing their services in Kazakhstan:

• Austria Bio Garantie GmbH;
• CERES Certification of Environmental Standards GmbH;
• Ecocert SA;
• Institute for Marketecology (IMO);
• Istituto Certificazione Etica e Ambientale;
• LACON GmbH;
• SGS Austria Controll-Co. GmbH;
• Ecoglobe;
• Organic standard.

Most of these entities are also accredited by the USDA for certification to the North American market. According to the plans of the Ministry of Agriculture, domestic organic certification should be in place by the end of 2019.

Branding

From 2017 the Kazakhstan agricultural producers were able to enter global markets in the framework of three umbrella brands: “Qazaq Organic Food”, “Kaz Meat” and “Halal Kazakhstan”. The group of products “Made in Kazakhstan” will be exported under these brands.

In addition, there is a plan for establishing a brand for vegetable oil producers, which will be called as “Qaz Mai” (Qazaq Natural Oil).

LAN-Moscow in close cooperation with NL embassy in Astana