Kazakhstan to sharply reduce wheat sown area

A seminar on the topic of crop area diversification was held in Osakarovka village, Karaganda oblast, by the “Auyl” party. It is planned to reduce sown areas under wheat, replacing them with oilseeds, legumes and fodder crops. This should provide higher margins for agricultural production, as well as support livestock breeding and oil refining, which is currently experiencing a shortage of raw materials.

In Karaganda region this season the sown area under all crops will amount to 1.2 million hectares. It is planned to reduce sowing of grain crops from last year’s 1 million hectares to 960 thousand hectares, replacing them with more profitable crops.

As noted Kairat Aituganov, Deputy Chairman of the party “Auyl”, the work on diversification in 2012 began in the pilot mode just from Karaganda region. Unfortunately, diversification has stalled on a national scale. But now it has become obvious that those decisions were correct – for several years in a row Kazakhstan has been receiving a flow of cheaper wheat from Russia, which creates difficulties for Kazakh farmers in selling their grain harvest at a fair price.

Murat Irgibayev, director of the Agriculture Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, said that this season’s wheat crops are expected to decrease by 430,000 hectares compared to last season, and by 855,000 hectares over the next five years. In 2023, sowing of wheat in Kazakhstan was carried out on 13.7 million hectares.

At the same time, the task is to prevent a decrease in the gross grain harvest by increasing yields.

The area under oilseed sowing should grow from the current 2.8 million hectares to 3.2 million hectares in five years. This will make it possible to provide raw materials for oil refineries in the country, which now have an annual capacity of 3 million tons. Also, the area under annual grasses should grow by 190 thousand hectares to increase the production of fodder to support livestock breeding.

Of course, for the success of this program we need finances – for renewal of machinery and tractor fleet and purchase of seeds. Now the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan is working out the issue of allocation of funds.

Tags: wheat, Kazakhstan