Kazakhstan has begun domestic production of sprinkler irrigation machines under the SU BEREKE brand, with the ADAM Group of Companies manufacturing 30 units in 2024, according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Sprinkler irrigation systems help distribute water evenly across fields, reducing consumption by 30% to 40%.
This year, ADAM plans to scale up production. By April, the company will open a second plant in East Kazakhstan, increasing output to 1,000 sprinkler machines annually.
The new facility is expected to reduce Kazakhstan’s dependence on imported equipment. Locally manufactured sprinklers will also be exported to neighboring Central Asian countries.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has previously criticized the slow adoption of water-saving practices in Kazakh agriculture, citing annual water losses of up to 40% in some regions. He has set a national target to introduce water-saving technologies on 150,000 hectares of land each year.
To support this initiative, the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation and the Ministry of Agriculture raised subsidies for farmers investing in water-saving irrigation systems from 50% to 80% in 2023. Additionally, the government increased subsidies for farmers using such technologies, covering 85% of irrigation water costs.
Kazakhstan’s agricultural land spans 23.3 million hectares, of which 1.9 million hectares are irrigated, primarily in the arid southern regions. However, the adoption of water-efficient technologies remains limited. In 2023, only 17% of irrigated land (312,000 hectares) used these systems, with drip irrigation covering just 84,000 hectares.
