Chairperson of the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Dariga Nazarbayeva holds a series of working meetings with representatives of the agricultural industry as part of preparations for parliamentary hearings. Today, a meeting has been held with the heads of scientific and educational centers and agricultural universities.
The event was attended by deputies of the Senate of the Parliament, heads of the National Agrarian Scientific and Educational Center, S.Seyfullin Kazakh Agrarian University, Zhangirkhan West Kazakhstan Agrarian and Technical University, and research institutes.
Speaking at the meeting, Chairman of the Board of NASEC JSC Toleutai Rakhimbekov believes that the main problem of agricultural science in Kazakhstan is the lack of a system of knowledge transfer, technologies transfer and commercialization. In this regard, T. Rakhimbekov proposed to restore the system of rural information and consultation points (RICP) in the regions on the basis of regional agricultural colleges and chambers of entrepreneurs.
The Chairman of the Board of NASEC JSC highlighted the problem of personnel shortage in agricultural science and emphasized that often graduates of specialized universities do not work in their specialty.
In turn, D. Nazarbayeva asked how effective the Bolashak International Educational Scholarship is in solving this problem. Toleutai Rakhimbekov said that today only 70 people out of 10 thousand graduates of the program work in the agricultural sector.
Continuing the topic of assigning the University graduates and highly qualified specialists to a village, the Chairman of the Board of S.Seyfullin Kazakh Agrarian University A. Kurishbayev suggested the cooperation of small farms as one of the solutions. If it is difficult to create conditions for modern personnel alone, then, by cooperating, farms will be able to provide personnel with normal social conditions and a social package, the University Rector believes.
A. Kurishbayev also spoke about the positive results of the University's work on identifying unused agricultural land and controlling the harvest using space monitoring. Some local executive authorities have already started using such services. "This makes it possible to get accurate data and avoid paperwork," the Rector said.
In his speech, Director General of the Kazakh Research Institute of Agriculture and Plant Growing Andrey Ageyenko focused on the situation in seed production. According to the researcher, the problem of storing the plant gene pool is acute, the existing system of primary seed production does not meet the requirements of modern agribusiness, there is no control over the domestic seed market, most farmers sow grain that does not meet the standards. "All of these factors doom the fields to the low yield and productivity. We propose to make changes to the control system of seed production, to allow the release of promising varieties of crops to the market, without waiting for a three-year cycle of registration in the register," A. Ageyenko said.
Damir Kaldybayev, Director General of Karabalyk Agricultural Experimental Station LLP, in turn, proposed to regulate the import and export of seeds by law. This could increase the competitiveness of domestic producers and protect the national market.
In his speech, he drew the attention of the meeting participants to the Scientific Village Project. "To increase the attractiveness of rural science for young people and meet the needs of agricultural producers in scientific research, we started this project last year. We received 880 million tenge from the regional Akimat, 21 km of road was repaired for 380 million tenge, and we will restore engineering and social infrastructure for 500 million tenge," Kaldybayev said.
During the discussion, the Chairperson of the Senate supported the project and proposed to involve investors from rural areas in the implementation of this initiative.
Concluding the discussion, D. Nazarbayeva spoke in favor of establishing a permanent platform under the Senate for a wide professional discussion of the agricultural problems:
"We need to establish the Council of Agro-Industrial Complex under the Senate until we bring the program and all the proposals to mind. We will carefully consider all the recommendations and try to include them in the document that we will send to the Government in the future. This Council could include all the parties concerned: representatives of the agro-industrial complex, the Government, local executive authorities, science and personnel training," D. Nazarbayeva said.
Following the event, the Chairperson of the Senate D. Nazarbayeva instructed the Committee on Agrarian Issues, Environmental Management and Rural Development to study the problematic topics raised by the participants of the meeting and prepare them for discussion during the parliamentary hearings.
