On May 6, the Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation reported on measures being taken to encourage farmers to save and use water more efficiently.
The move addresses Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s earlier criticism about the process of introducing water-saving technologies being “extremely slow,” with agricultural sectors in some regions, experiencing annual losses of water of 40%.
According to plans set in motion by the ministry, by 2030, the installation of water-saving technologies will provide an annual saving of up to 2.1 cubic kilometres of water on 50% of the country’s irrigated land
To date, subsidies for drilling irrigation wells have been increased to 80% of their costs, and in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, work is progressing to increase subsidies for the installation of water-saving systems from 50% to 80% of their costs.
In adherence to the new Water Code, the state will provide subsidies and reduced tariffs for water supply depending on the extent to which water-saving technologies are used. Tariffs for irrigation water are set to be calculated according to the types of crops grown and the volume of water required for their production.
The ministry is also working to digitalize 3,500 km of irrigation canals in the Almaty, Zhambyl, Kyzylorda, and Turkestan regions in the south of the country, which will improve water metering on 362 thousand hectares of irrigated land and enable a saving up to 600 million cubic meters of water annually.
