September 2020: Overview of Kazakhstan Agricultural Sector

Highlights of Kazakhstan Agriculture prepared by the Economic Section of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Kazakhstan.

Kazakhstan harvests twice as much grain this year

During the crisis associated with the pandemic, agriculture of Kazakhstan turned out to be one of a few industries that managed to maintain positive dynamics. Against the general background of a decrease in the GDP of Kazakhstan, gross agricultural output in January-August 2020 in the country as a whole amounted to 2.4 trillion tenge, which is higher than the level of the corresponding period of the previous year by 4.9%. The growth was due to an increase in crop production by 10.7%, the volume of slaughter of livestock and poultry in live weight by 3.7%, and raw cow milk yields by 3%.

In addition, harvest rates this year are noticeably higher than a year before. The country has already harvested 10.5 million hectares of grain and leguminous crops, or 66% of their total harvested area. With the current average yield of 11.7 q/ha, 12.2 million tons of grain were threshed. Half as much was harvested and threshed as of the same date last year at 5.3 million hectares, or 35%, and 5.8 million tons, respectively. Such high rates of harvesting are mainly due to timely sowing and other agricultural activities, distribution of funding, high-quality preparation of work, agricultural machinery, fuel, relatively favorable weather conditions as well as the state support for agricultural producers.

Production of chilled poultry meat in Kazakhstan increases by 26% on-year

In January-July 2020, the country's production of fresh or chilled poultry meat reached 60.5 thousand tons, which is just 26.2% more than a year earlier. The production of frozen poultry meat also increased by 8.9%, to 66.5 thousand tons. The largest volumes of white meat production are concentrated in the Almaty, Akmola and East Kazakhstan regions. The major operating companies are: Kazros-Broiler in the Almaty region, Makinskaya Poultry Farm in the Akmola region, Aytas-MP in the East Kazakhstan region, Capital Projects LTD in the Akmola region.

Until the end of this year, Makinskaya Poultry Farm will increase its production capacity from 25 thousand to 50 thousand tons of meat per year. As a part of import substitution implementation in Kazakhstan in 2020, 8 meat poultry farms will be launched. In the first half of the year, two poultry meat farms have already started their operations: Shymkent Kus in the Turkestan region, and TPK KazAgros in the Kostanay region. The remaining 6 poultry farms will be launched by the end of the year.

Production of canned fish and caviar in Kazakhstan increases 3 times

In January-July 2020, the production of fish, caviar and its substitutes prepared or canned in another way reached 15.6 thousand tons, 3.1 times more than a year earlier. Almost two thirds of the total production, or 64.2%, took place in the Atyrau region at 10 thousand tons, which is 40.6 times more than for the same period last year. Other two leading regions are the West Kazakhstan region the Turkestan region.

In the first half of the year, Kazakhstani companies provided demand for processed and canned fish, crustaceans and molluscs by 62.6%, against 40% a year earlier. Production has almost tripled over this period compared to last year, to 42 thousand tons. The share of imports amounted to 37.4%.

Greenhouses worth 21 billion tenge to appear in Shymkent

Construction of a greenhouse complex has been launched in an agro-industrial zone of Shymkent. Construction of the facilities is planned for two stages. At the first stage in 2020-2021, the industrial greenhouse complex will be built on an area of 30 hectares. The project worth 9.4 billion tenge is implemented by such investors as Taza Onim, AIDI Agro Trade, Kolesnikov, ASM Corporation, High Yield, Tatybaeva, Kaz Agro Trade, Nur Alem Agro.  In 2022-2025, they plan to implement the second stage of the project on the area of 60 hectares. According to the government agency, the total cost of the project is 21 billion tenge. In general, after launching all greenhouses, they plan to create more than 1,000 new jobs.

Kazakhstan issues fines for importers of vegetables and fruits for 110 million tenge

Over 8 months of 2020, when checking goods imported to Kazakhstan, more than 2.7 thousand violations of legislation in the field of plant quarantine were revealed, the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture said. In most cases, importers of plant products tried to import goods without mandatory phytosanitary certificates. There have been also few attempts to import goods with fake or inappropriate certificates, prohibited and contaminated products.

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