This year, 47 new agricultural cooperatives appeared in Kyrgyzstan — a total of 741 associations. Experts say that merging into large farms will allow farmers to increase yields and the export potential of their products.
In 2023, Kyrgyzstan exported more than 850,000 tons of agricultural products — vegetables, fruits, milk, and meat. More than 40% of these exports went to the countries of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU). However, to increase the export potential and the geography of supplies, it is necessary to move away from so-called “small-scale production.” When farmers produce goods in small batches, experts believe the way out of this situation can be the cooperation of farms.
“The issue of creating cooperatives is a sore point in Kyrgyzstan’s farming sector. For over 10 years, we have been saying there is a problem — small-scale commodity production. According to official data, we have more than 460,000 farmers in the country, but, unfortunately, there is no volume of production,” Rustam Baltalbayev, Executive Director of the Association of Agroindustrial Complex (AAC), told The Times of Central Asia.
Baltabayev said an agricultural co-op is the most convenient form of doing business in agriculture. It solves the problem of wholesale supplies abroad. According to the AAK, agrarians in Kyrgyzstan’s southern regions — producers of white rice and bell peppers — are actively joining agricultural cooperatives.
“This mechanism, in my opinion, is the most profitable and convenient regarding agricultural development. It is only necessary to finalize the legal forms so that large holdings could join associations,” he noted.
