From year to year, grain reserves in Kazakhstan are growing. It becomes obvious that the consumption of this product both inside the country and for export purposes has stopped growing or its growth lags behind the growth of production of grain crops. The worst case for this market is a drop in overall consumption against a background of increased yields. This was already informed by the IA “Kazakh-Zerno”.
Over the past six years, grain stocks in Kazakhstan, as of November 1, increase every year. It is for this period after harvesting campaign and filling of grain barns with a new crop, the republic has the maximum reserves of grain crops in the season. And these highs increased for 6 years at 3,265,583 tons, or by 19.5%, according to the Committee of Statistics of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
In 2012, the volume of grain in Kazakhstan in early November was at the level of 16,742,890 tons. In the following year, grain reserves increased to 16,868,333 tons, and in 2014 decreased to 14,136,859 tons. Then they increased by increasing – 17,750,015 tons in 2015, 18,840,294 tons in 2016 and 20,008,473 tons in 2017. There is an exception that only confirms the general trend. This is 2014. But this year the grain harvest was lower than the average annual level – 16,785.2 thousand tons, combined with low grain reserves at the beginning of 2014-15 season within 4 million tons.
How can you encourage consumption and bring it in line with the growth of the productivity of the grain economy? The most obvious directions for increasing consumption are the growth of exports and the domestic market in the fields of animal husbandry and agricultural processing, again with the further export of products from these sectors, since the market for final consumption of grain and all its further derivatives in Kazakhstan is limited.
Sales of grain for export in natural and processed form becomes the most urgent task for agriculture. Growth of the export of agricultural products in the country, in any form – crop production, livestock product, or processed or finished products, may become the main growth factor in the AIC of the country. Now efforts to ensure and increase the export capabilities of the industry lead to certain results. Diversification of crop production allowed increasing the assortment list of exported agricultural products, volumes in some segments also increase, but so far, unfortunately, these efforts have not acquired the form of a systemic explosive positive effect.
There are, of course, other developmental and stabilizing options for the development of the country’s agricultural sector. They require careful analysis and elaboration. But that is another topic.