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Agriculture

Kazakhstan-China Agricultural Research Center to Open in Key Grain-Producing Region

A Kazakhstan-China Agricultural Research Center will be established in the North Kazakhstan region, one of the country's top three grain-producing areas. The initiative was announced by region's governor Gauez Nurmukhambetov following a business delegation’s visit to China. “Last week, a business delegation from our region visited the People’s Republic of China and held meetings with leading Chinese investors. As a result, seven strategic memoranda were signed, opening new economic opportunities for our region. These agreements include the construction of new factories and the creation of a Kazakh-Chinese agricultural research center,” Nurmukhambetov said at a press conference. The region continues to post record harvests. In 2025 it harvested 6.5 million tons of grain, nearly a quarter of Kazakhstan’s total gross harvest of 27.1 million tons. Nevertheless, the region is actively diversifying its agricultural profile. Sugar beet cultivation is expanding, with experimental plots from Asyl Farms showing strong crop adaptation. Based on this success, plans are underway to build a processing facility capable of handling 1 million tons of raw material annually, producing up to 200,000 tons of sugar. In the Kyzylzhar district, Salar Farm is building a plant for processing granulated alfalfa with an annual capacity of 60,000 tons. The main export markets include China and other Central Asian countries. The facility is scheduled to open in 2026. The region is also home to Maslo-Del, an oil extraction plant with an annual processing capacity of 370,000 tons of oilseeds and a production output of 120,000 tons, much of which is exported. Alongside its growth in crop production, the region is making notable progress in livestock farming. “SK Agro will construct the largest cattle farm in Central Asia, with a herd of 10,000 and a state-of-the-art Carousel milking system,” said Nurmukhambetov. “The farm is expected to increase milk production by 68 million tons annually. This will raise the share of milk produced by agricultural enterprises in Kazakhstan to 70%.” He noted that in Belarus, modern farms account for 77% of milk production, in China around 70%, and in European countries more than 93%. North Kazakhstan region aims to boost its share of the country’s total milk output to 20%. Meanwhile, 17 projects valued at $555.6 million are underway in the Qyzyljar special economic zone. Agricultural cooperation with China continues to grow. Kazakhstan views China as a key export destination for its processed agricultural products. In November, QazTrade signed a partnership agreement with Optimize Integration Group, one of China’s largest food importers, responsible for 18% of the country's frozen meat imports. In a related development, a joint Kazakh-Chinese veterinary laboratory was opened in East Kazakhstan region in October 2025. The facility is designed to streamline and accelerate export procedures for agricultural goods.

Agriculture

Turkish Cengiz Holding Plans $500 Million Investment in Kazakhstan’s Sugar Industry

Turkish industrial conglomerate Cengiz Holding has announced plans to invest $500 million in the construction of two sugar processing plants in Kazakhstan, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. The announcement followed a meeting between Agriculture Minister Aidarbek Saparov and Cengiz Holding board member Jengiz Shaban. The proposed facilities would have a combined annual capacity of up to 300,000 tons of sugar. North Kazakhstan and Pavlodar regions are under consideration as potential locations for the new factories. The project has a 10-year investment horizon. Construction is expected to begin in 2026, with production to commence within two years. According to Shaban, the initiative aims to boost domestic sugar supply while also supporting the development of by-products such as animal feed, food ingredients, and industrial alcohol. Saparov described the proposal as “strategically important” for Kazakhstan’s food security. “The creation of new processing capacities and the formation of a sustainable raw material base are key priorities for the state,” he said. The Ministry of Agriculture reports that Kazakhstan currently operates four sugar factories, three of which process domestically grown sugar beets. Despite this, annual consumption stands at approximately 500,000 tons, with local production meeting only 14% of national demand. Earlier, another Turkish conglomerate, Safi Holding, also expressed interest in establishing a sugar processing facility in Kazakhstan. The existing sugar factories include Aksu-Kant (Taldykorgan district), Koksu Sugar Factory (Almaty region), and the Merken and Taraz plants in Zhambyl region. Three of these process local sugar beets, while the Taraz facility relies on imported cane sugar. In 2024, Kazakhstan recorded a bumper sugar beet harvest of 1.2 million tons, yet only about 700,000 tons were processed, once again exposing deep-rooted inefficiencies in the sector.

Agriculture

Kazakhstan Launches Michurin Orchard to Advance High-Tech Horticulture

Kazakhstan has taken a significant step in modernizing its agricultural sector with the inauguration of the Michurin Orchard, a collaborative venture between the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan and the Russian Academy of Sciences. The orchard, launched on December 1 in the village of Almalyk, Almaty region, will serve as a flagship platform for developing intensive horticulture and integrating science with high-value agricultural production. The initiative is part of the Kazakh-Russian Center for Advanced Technologies in the Agro-Industrial Sector, established in April 2025. Named after Ivan Michurin (1855-1935), a renowned Russian pioneer in plant selection, the orchard will operate as an open-air research and production site. Its core objectives include testing promising fruit and berry varieties, applying intensive horticultural techniques, and deploying water-, energy-, and resource-saving technologies. Initial plantings will focus on high-yield Russian apple cultivars adapted to Kazakhstan’s climate, along with pear, cherry, sweet cherry, plum, and a broad range of berries such as raspberry, honeysuckle, currants, sea buckthorn, and rose hips. Akhylbek Kurishbayev, President of the National Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan, described the orchard as “a long-term investment in the development of Kazakhstan’s fruit growing industry.” He emphasized that the initial three-hectare planting represents the foundation of a new generation of resilient, high-productivity varieties capable of withstanding climatic stress. Kurishbayev noted that the Michurin Orchard will contribute to national breeding programs, build a sustainable raw material base for food processing industries, ranging from juices and concentrates to functional foods and help shift Kazakhstan’s agro-industrial model from raw-materials dependence to knowledge-intensive production. The orchard will also function as a live testing ground for horticultural technologies, from the selection of planting material to the delivery of premium fruit to consumers. Horticulture is emerging as a strategic growth sector within Kazakhstan’s agro-industrial complex. According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture Yerbol Taszhurekov, Kazakhstan’s apple orchards now span nearly 29,000 hectares, predominantly located in the southern regions of Almaty, Turkestan, Zhambyl, and Zhetisu. In Almaty and Zhetisu regions alone, apple orchards cover more than 2,400 hectares and include over 416,000 trees. In parallel, Kazakhstan is working to revive the iconic aport apple, a variety deeply intertwined with the country's botanical heritage and the city of Almaty, widely regarded as the ancestral home of the apple. Under a targeted 2024-2028 program involving private investors and specialized nurseries, the government aims to produce certified saplings and scale commercial aport cultivation. By 2027, Kazakhstan plans to plant 110 hectares of aport orchards.

Agriculture

New FAO Report Ranks Tajikistan Among World’s Most At-Risk Countries for Land Degradation

Tajikistan is among the countries most vulnerable to land degradation, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The findings point to alarming environmental and socio-economic risks for a country where agriculture remains the primary source of employment. The FAO attributes Tajikistan's vulnerability to a combination of small landholdings and intense pressure on soil resources. The country has more than 1 million rural households, including approximately 181,000 dekhkan farms. The average landholding is just 0.2 hectares, with a median size of 0.1 hectares, meaning half of all farmers operate on micro-plots. Challenges to Sustainable Agricultural Growth Under these conditions, expanding agricultural production is not feasible through increased acreage. Instead, growth depends on improving soil quality, upgrading irrigation systems, ensuring stable water access, and adopting modern technologies. These factors now define the boundaries of Tajikistan's agricultural development. According to the FAO, land degradation has affected 3.2 billion people globally, nearly 40% of the world's population. In some regions, agricultural yields have already declined by at least 10%. In Tajikistan, the stakes are especially high. The country has limited arable land, and its farming sector relies heavily on glacial meltwater and consistent irrigation. Climate risks are intensifying faster here than in many neighboring states. Extent and Impact of Land Degradation International experts estimate that nearly 70% of Tajikistan’s arable land is already degraded, with 10% of the population living in affected areas. The main drivers are erosion, salinization, and nutrient depletion, which collectively undermine soil productivity. These environmental pressures reduce rural incomes, increase reliance on external resources such as fertilizers, and contribute to forced migration, exacerbating social and economic vulnerabilities across the country.

Agriculture

Tokayev Proposes Linking Farm Subsidies to Advanced Technologies

Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has proposed that state support for farmers be tied to their adoption of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI). The proposal was made during his speech at the country’s second Agricultural Workers Forum. Tokayev noted that while many farms are already using innovations such as smart farming systems, agricultural drones, satellite monitoring, and AI, technological development at the national level remains uneven. “We must move from isolated ‘smart’ solutions to full-scale digital agricultural production,” Tokayev stated. “Every farm should be incentivized to adopt digital technologies. State support should be directed toward those enterprises implementing innovations, including artificial intelligence.” Tokayev also reported that preferential lending to the agricultural sector has exceeded $1.9 billion in 2025, ten times more than five years ago. He stressed that the adoption of innovative technologies must extend beyond producers to include the regulatory authorities overseeing the agro-industrial sector. “It is necessary to develop an effective system for tracking and controlling state grain reserves using digital technologies and AI tools,” he said. “This requires modernizing existing grain elevators and constructing new, modern facilities. In state-backed financing programs for private elevators, having electronic systems for grain intake and dispatch should be a mandatory requirement.” Tokayev also highlighted persistent issues in agricultural data systems, which he described as fragmented and lacking integration. This, he said, results in policy decisions based on unreliable statistics. He called for comprehensive, objective data to be provided by the upcoming National Agricultural Census, which should serve as the foundation for updating digital infrastructure across the agro-industrial complex. Previously, The Times of Central Asia reported that Kazakhstan achieved a record harvest this year of grains, oilseeds, and legumes.

Agriculture

Kyrgyzstan’s Sugar Market: a Story of Revival

According to the Kyrgyz Ministry of Water Resources, Agriculture, and Processing Industry, which oversees national food security through agricultural production monitoring, domestic production now fully covers the nation’s sugar needs, turning what was once a chronic import dependency into a cautious success story of agro-industrial revival. Soviet Legacy In Soviet times, despite Kyrgyzstan’s southern position and thanks to large quantities of glacier water, the republic grew a large quantity of sugar beets. Kyrgyzstan’s sugar-beet fields fed a network of processing plants that supplied not only the republic itself but also part of the wider region. The collapse of that system in the 1990s left the sector fragmented: beet acreage shrank, equipment aged, and the country increasingly turned to imported raw cane sugar and white sugar, often refined abroad. With the continued operations of the Kaindy-Kant sugar factory and the relaunch of the Koshoi factory in 2017, a partial turnaround began in the late 2010s, backed by development funds and state support. The explicit goal was to rebuild a domestic value chain and reduce exposure to price swings and supply disruptions in neighboring markets. A story of tariffs For much of the 2010s and early 2020s, Kyrgyz sugar plants depended on raw cane sugar imports, which they processed into refined sugar for the domestic market. When Kyrgyzstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in 2015, it adopted the bloc’s Common Customs Tariff but secured a sugar-specific concession. For five years after accession, the country could import up to 100,000 tons of raw cane sugar per year, on condition that the resulting white sugar remained in Kyrgyzstan and was not re-exported into other EAEU states. Once that transition period expired in 2020, Bishkek continued to receive targeted support. In 2022, the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) extended 0% customs duty on imports of white sugar and raw cane sugar into Kyrgyzstan until 31 October 2022. In 2023, the EEC again introduced duty-free quotas for raw cane sugar, allowing designated volumes to enter Kyrgyzstan at zero duty for refining. These measures effectively subsidized the input costs of Kyrgyz refineries, helping them stay afloat at a time when many local farmers still preferred other crops and when cheap finished sugar from larger EAEU producers was flooding the market. Reaching self-sufficiency Since 2020, sugar beet production has roughly doubled. In 2024, officials reported that farmers harvested more than 620,000 tons of sugar beet. When processed, it was enough to meet the estimated annual domestic sugar requirement of about 120,000 tons of sugar. By late 2024, the government declared that Kyrgyzstan had fully covered its sugar demand from domestic production, a status it confirmed again for the first nine months of 2025. Sugar now stands among six “socially important” food products for which domestic output is deemed sufficient to secure food security, alongside potatoes, milk, meat, vegetables and eggs. Kyrgyzstan now aims to raise annual sugar production to 200,000 tons by 2030. Caught between protection and competition Bishkek’s tariff and subsidy policy has walked a fine line:...