At a government session chaired by Prime Minister Askar Mamin, issues of saturation of the market with domestic food were considered. The Minister of Agriculture Saparkhan Omarov reported on the work carried out in this direction.
To date, the harvesting of grain and leguminous crops has been completed at 99.5% of the total harvested area. According to the operational data of the akimats, the harvesting of oilseeds continues.
The total harvesting area in the republic was 15.8 million hectares. 20.1 million tons of grain have been threshed with an average yield of 12.8 c / ha.
As the minister of agriculture noted, the obtained volumes of production of grain and leguminous crops will fully satisfy the country's internal needs and realize the export potential in the amount of 7-8 million tons of grain.
“It should be noted that the harvesting work was completed a month earlier than last year. This was facilitated by favorable weather conditions and technical preparedness of farmers. Compared to 2019, 1 million tons of grain more were delivered to the elevators, while 80 percent of the incoming grain with high quality characteristics, while in 2019 this figure was 54.4 percent,” Omarov said.
Regarding the saturation of the domestic market with food products, the Head of State, in his Address to the people of Kazakhstan dated Sep. 1, 2020, set the task to achieve a level of self-sufficiency in all socially significant food products.
The monitoring of the security of the domestic market is carried out for 29 main types of food products. Of these, the domestic market is 100% or more provided for 12 commodity items. For 11 foodstuffs, the provision is 80% or more. This is a sufficient level of self-sufficiency according to the classification of the international agricultural organization FAO.
And only for 6 foodstuffs it is necessary to implement measures to increase production and saturate the domestic market with domestic products. These are poultry, sausages, cheese and cottage cheese, apples, sugar and fish.
“To date, the ministry has prepared a draft Comprehensive Plan for saturating the domestic market with domestic products for 2021-2023. A specific pool of investment projects in each area has been determined,” Omarov assured.
Now the volumes of own production of poultry meat cover only 58% of the needs of the domestic market. To fully saturate the domestic market, it is necessary to additionally increase capacity by 171 thousand tons of poultry meat. This task will be implemented by the end of 2023 due to the commissioning of new poultry farms, as well as the expansion of the existing capacities of poultry farms.
Reducing the volume of imports of poultry meat due to domestic production will save about $177 million or 77 billion tenge annually in the country's economy, which now go in the form of foreign exchange earnings to other countries.
“To accomplish this task, a total of 19 poultry farms with a total capacity of 285 thousand tons of poultry meat will be launched, including 6 poultry farms with a total capacity of 70 thousand tons this year, 13 — with a total capacity of 215 thousand tons in 2021-2023 years. This will cover the needs of the domestic market in full,” Omarov said.
For the implementation of the above 13 investment projects, an additional 147 billion tenge will be required, including 69 billion tenge of credit resources.
For the successful implementation of projects, it is necessary to quickly resolve the following issues:
-allocation of funds for the provision of engineering infrastructure;
-allocation of funds for subsidizing the production of poultry meat and investment subsidies;
-changing the mechanism of distribution of tariff quotas for poultry meat imports in favor of processing enterprises;
-allocation of land for the cultivation of forage.
In terms of dairy products, there are import volumes in the domestic market for cheeses and cottage cheese, condensed and powdered milk. The total volume of imports of dairy products in terms of raw milk is about 500 thousand tons.
“Domestic dairies are quite capable of producing these goods, especially since their production capacities are underutilized. It is necessary to resolve the issues of increasing the production of high-quality commercial milk raw materials. Therefore, in the medium term, the Ministry sets the task of increasing the production of commercial milk by introducing and expanding the capacities of industrial dairy farms,” the minister noted.
To stimulate the development of dairy farming, the Ministry has taken the following measures:
-the requirement for mandatory state expertise in the construction of dairy farms has been eliminated, which has reduced the design time for farms from six to one and a half months.
-in order to ensure the availability of loans from second-tier banks, a mechanism was introduced to guarantee investor loans up to 85% of the loan amount.
-the standards for subsidizing milk, purchased pedigree animals, and the standards for investment subsidies have been revised.
-a tool was introduced to finance the purchase of breeding animals secured by livestock.
These changes had a positive effect on the business activity of agricultural producers. If earlier only 3 to 5 industrial dairy farms were launched per year, then this year 33 projects of dairy farms are being implemented.
In general, it is planned to launch 35 industrial dairy farms annually within the indicative task of the Comprehensive Plan. At present, the regional akimats have worked out projects for the construction of 39 dairy farms for the next year.
To implement the task, it will be necessary to additionally allocate 147 billion tenge for 3 years for lending and state support.
It should be noted that the import of sausage products is 33.3 thousand tons, with 85% imported from neighboring Russia. The domestic market is provided with domestically produced sausage products by 62%.
In general, the task of saturating the domestic market with sausage products will be implemented by financing meat processing enterprises for circulating purposes and encouraging farmers to hand over livestock for slaughter.
Also, nine projects are being implemented for the construction of meat processing plants for 103 thousand tons, which will provide the domestic market with sausage products.
As the minister of agriculture noted, 34 large companies, 195 medium-sized, 1,370 small farms and personal subsidiary farms on a total area of 35.1 thousand hectares are currently engaged in apple production in the republic, with a production volume of 216.5 thousand tons of apples.
At the same time, the apple yield in industrial intensive orchards is 40-45 tons per hectare, while in small and personal subsidiary farms it is 7-10 tons per hectare. Therefore, the stake on increasing the area of apple orchards should be made on large and medium-sized farms, and small farms and personal subsidiary farms should be combined into cooperatives.
“The total consumption of apples is 344.3 thousand tons, import is 128 thousand tons. The saturation of the domestic market is expected through the establishment of new intensive orchards on an area of 6.6 thousand hectares,” stressed Omarov.
It is proposed to concentrate the laying of new gardens in the main horticultural regions: Almaty, Zhambyl and Turkistan regions, Shymkent. It should be noted that work is already underway in these regions, there is a pool of projects for the next 3 years with an area of 5.5 thousand hectares.
“Here I would like to draw your attention separately to the importance of the implementation of the project with the Turkish company, Goknur Gida, which is supposed to lay 5 thousand hectares of gardens in the Turkistan, Almaty and Zhambyl regions. With a gradual reaching full fruiting, laying a year with an average of 2 - 2.2 thousand hectares of orchards will completely cover the deficit in apples and reach full self-sufficiency in 2024,” the head of the department said.
In order to support the industry and accelerate the implementation of projects, it is in the next three years that it is necessary to provide increased state support during this period. This will stimulate investors and ensure the success of the program.
Besides apples, there is also a shortage of high quality planting material. About 7 million seedlings are annually imported from other countries for a total of about 25 billion tenge, while they are not always of high quality, and some are infected with various plant diseases.
According to the minister, the country plans to build a laboratory for the production of virus-free planting material using In-Vitro technology with high productive qualities. The cost of the laboratory will be about 10 billion tenge.
The deficit of the capacity of fruit storage facilities, which provide a special gas environment for preserving the marketable and taste qualities of apples, is about 80 thousand tons.
It should be noted that over the past 5 years, the area under sugar beet crops has increased by 9.8 times, the yield of sugar beet by 1.3 times, and the gross harvest by more than 20 times.
“These facts once again confirm the development potential of the domestic sugar industry, for which it is necessary to increase the sown area of sugar beet at least 2 times. Taking into account the fact that in the 90s sugar beet was planted in 13 regions of the republic, we believe that each region should take part in this work,” the minister said.
Currently, the deficit of domestically produced sugar is 240 thousand tons, or more than half of the demand.
Saturation of the domestic market is expected due to the announced increase in sugar beet crops, increasing its yield and quality through the use of modern agricultural technologies, high-quality seeds and technical re-equipment.
The modernization of the existing 4 sugar factories, as well as the implementation of projects for the construction of new sugar factories in Zhambyl and Pavlodar regions will reduce the deficit by producing an additional 180 thousand tons of sugar and reach a supply of 80%.
At the same time, measures have been taken to support the industry in the form of investment subsidies, subsidies per ton of sugar beets supplied for processing. The comprehensive plan also plans to implement other measures to support the industry.
According to the head of the department, in addition to measures to saturate the domestic market, it is necessary to work on the development of the export potential of agricultural products, focusing on the export of processed products. This was also noted in the President's Address to the people of Kazakhstan.
“In order to increase exports of agricultural products and saturate the domestic market, the Ministry of Agriculture plans to implement 380 investment projects in the next five years, including projects with the participation of transnational companies, around which 7 ecosystems will be formed in priority areas of the agro-industrial complex. It is planned to attract about 5 trillion tenge of investments to the industry,” summed up Omarov.
Source: https://primeminister.kz/en/news/po-12-tovarnym-poziciyam-vnutrenniy-rynok-kazahstana-obespechen-na-100-msh-694623
