​Minister of Agriculture visited Atyrau

By Murat Sultangaliev

On December 5, the RoK Minister of Agriculture Asylzhan Mamytbekov (on a photo) paid a working visit to Atyrau. The minister visited the agrarian sector companies, distributed awards to the leaders of the branch during the solemn meeting at the Drama theater and then held press conference at the regional communications service.

At the meeting with journalists A. Mamytbekov talked about the RoK Law "On Agricultural Cooperation" that was adopted in November of this year.

- What is the difference between the cooperatives and the Soviet type collective farms?

- We consider that the future is with the economic associations, when farmers stay independent and may cooperate on issues of production, machine and tractor service, sale of goods etc. One farmer can participate in several cooperatives. And those are not collective farms.

- Recently you said that Kazakhstan companies are ready to meet the demands of the Russian consumers due to the ban of import of Turkish products …

- The words were taken out of context. The question raised was as follows: if in Russia the demand will increase because of restriction of import of Turkish products, will Kazakhstan farmers supply their products to the Russian market? My answer was: "if there is a demand from the Russian market, then our farmers are ready to supply products on the conditions favorable to the Kazakhstan farmers. It doesn't mean that we will completely replace the existing import from Turkey".

Unfortunately, our production volumes are, in many respects, squeezed not so much by conditions of production, but by selling markets. Today the issues of sales are coming to the forefront – if there is a demand, our farmers are ready to increase their production by many times.

- How was grain harvest this year? The government was forced to raise the price of social bread. Was there a lot of grain left in the fields?

- We managed to collect all the crop from the fields. If anything remained, then those were limited quantities that normally the farmers aren't able to harvest even during good years. This year was difficult. But agrarians of the country managed to harvest 19,9 million tons of grain, which is 3 million tons more compared to the previous year. But that wasn't the basis for raising bread price.

The decision to increase bread price was driven by the necessity from now on to let the market to form the price in this sphere.And socially vulnerable segments of the population will receive social assistance.

The state envisages supporting the agrarian companies that are going to reach the planned capacity. Ten companies of the agrarian sector in our region that were constructed in the last 3 years will receive next year the investment subsidies in the amount of 3,5 billion tenge. Out of that amount the cow farm “Pervomaisky" will receive 1,3 billion.