As previously reported, in late March in the most southern regions of Kazakhstan began spring sowing campaign. Farmers from Kyzylorda, South Kazakhstan and Zhambyl regions started sowing of cereals, oilseeds, vegetables, melons and fodder crops.
By April 3, the volume of grain planted in these areas amounted to 36.1% of the targeted area of arable land – 167.7 thousand hectares. Sowing pace lags behind last year’s dynamics, but last year the area was 18.2 thousand hectares less than in 2014. The leader in terms of grain sowing in the South Kazakhstan region, which started a campaign earlier than neighbors – 45.2%. This year, the area under cereals in the region will be 49.6 thousand hectares, rice – Kyzylorda region – 2.7 thousand hectares with an increase of 0.5 thousand hectares and 115.4 thousand hectares – in Zhambyl region. Here, too, farmers plan to increase the area under grain crops by 4 thousand hectares.
Oilseeds sowing in three regions started recently and farmers managed to plant 1.1% of the area. Unlike grain crops sowing pace is ahead of last year’s. Plans for oilseeds in the regions became more modest than last year. The overall decrease is of 9.1 thousand hectares, from 200.2 to 191.1 thousand hectares. In Kyzylorda region farmers are not going to sow oilseeds at all.
Almost half the planned area is planted with perennial forage grasses (alfalfa, etc.) by April 3 – 43.9%. The most successful in this was Zhambyl region – 87.9% of the plan and in the Kyzylorda region just 3.3 %. However, in the overall balance the pace of alfalfa sowing is ahead of last year, said the IA “Kazakh-Zerno”.
Vegetables, potatoes and melon in three regions are planted on about a tenth of the area. This year, the total planned area under vegetables was 56.1 thousand hectares with an increase of 2.4 thousand hectares, under potatoes 2.9 thousand hectares with a decrease of 1.8 thousand hectares and 64 thousand hectares under melon. This is 9.2 thousand hectares more than last year. Sowing pace of melon crops is ahead of last year by a third.