Meat production may decline in Kazakhstan – expert

According to them, every year there is less and less hay, diesel fuel and feed become more expensive.

Timur Nurgazin, a representative of one of the peasant farms in the Samara region of Eastern Kazakhstan, says: it is becoming unprofitable to engage in livestock farming. The current drought has added problems to the villagers.

"There hasn't been enough hay in the last three or four years. Previously, 8 hectares of land required 12-13 trellises. Now there are only two or three trellises. And this despite the fact that I haven't mowed for two years, I let the land rest. These are the problems with hay. Besides spare parts for equipment are very expensive. Reduced diesel fuel in the spring of this year was 207 tenge per liter, now it’s 260-265 tenge. I need about 100 tons of hay, even more. That’s about 25-30 grates. So far I’ve only brought six or seven. More the rain is in the way. To prevent it from rotting, we turn it over with our hands and dry it. We will still mow the reeds. We have to get out of the situation somehow. We don’t know how much more snow there will be. If there is a lot of precipitation, then almost twice as much hay will be needed,” laments He.

The Department of Agriculture commented that district akimats can allocate free land and forest lands to those in need of livestock feed. In total, there are about one and a half million heads of livestock in the region.

“We don’t have our own plot, we mow in different places and store it. Last year, due to a lack of hay, the animals were skinny and barely survived the winter. This year we collected 15 trailers, ten more trailers are needed,” says Arman Tabys, a resident of the Ulansky district.

Selling livestock is also a problem, villagers say. Resellers do not take skinny animals . There is a lot of choice. The MEAT Union of Kazakhstan notes that there is a lot of meat on the market, so there are no prerequisites for price increases. On the one hand, it’s good that meatdoes not become more expensive. On the other hand, in the future this threatens to reduce the number of livestock and meat production.

“Resellers cannot buy everything, because our market is limited. Now people who come from the south are buying. Supply exceeds demand, and, accordingly, according to the law of the market, the price falls. The price, for example, for bulls was somewhere around 850- 900 tenge per kilogram of live weight last year. Now 800-850 tenge. The Kazakh market situation is formed from our own production and imports. Our imports are, roughly speaking, uncontrolled. And this product is mainly supplied by RUSSIA and Belarus . This is cow meat, and the bulls come too, because the rublefell. They beat the price in the local market. As with the same wheat," says Askar Zhubatyrov, executive DIRECTOR of the Meat Union of Kazakhstan association.

To support domestic farmers, he notes, it is necessary to open an EXPORT channel. People need to be given the opportunity to earn money.

"They believed in the state program at one time, invested their investments , opened farms and so on. And at the moment they are simply out of work, because it seems that there is livestock, there is meat, there is infrastructure, but the export markets are closed, so there is nowhere to sell. But the local market is small and limited. In the short term, it is good for the population that meat is cheap. But in the long run this will cause it to fallmeat production . That is, the livestock will be slaughtered, the number of livestock will decrease, and the volume of production will decrease. There will be a larger share of imports. Now, although the volume of imports is falling every year, according to official statistics, we can again return to the indicators of 2010, when the overwhelming volume was imported. Accordingly, we will continue to be dependent on the exchange rate and the mood of our importing partners. Now we do not allow importers to behave freely in our market. They know that we have a lot of meat, so they charge accordingly,” added Askar Zhubatyrov.

Therefore, it is necessary to lift the restriction on the export of meat, the expert emphasized, and maintain the price on the market through cheap imports. These market mechanisms really work, and we must come to this, otherwise the number of livestock will decrease, and, consequently, the production of Kazakhstani meat.