The first deputy chairman of the Auyl party, Toleutai Rakhimbekov, called the task of doubling the volume of gross agricultural output in five years, set in the draft of the new National Agro-Industrial Complex Project for 2024-2028 “Strong Agro-Industrial Complex”, utopian. The industry expert also criticized other indicators that the Ministry of Agriculture outlined in the document. Rakhimbekov expressed his comments on Facebook.
In fact, there are 4.5 years left to implement the project. But we also need to take into account the timing of approval of the budget for increasing subsidies and the fact that sowing work is already underway in the country. Therefore, as Toleutai Rakhimbekov noted, after all procedures are completed, the national project will practically be implemented within four years.
“Gross agricultural output is calculated simply: the volume of products produced is multiplied by the selling price for each type and everything adds up,” the expert explained.
He cited the following calculations as an example: 20 million tons of grain were produced per year, which peasants sold at an average price of 100 thousand tenge/ton, that is, they received a total of 2 trillion tenge. 3 million tons of oilseeds were sold at a price of 200 thousand tenge, for a total of 600 billion tenge. 6 million tons of milk at 100 thousand tenge yielded 600 billion tenge, 1.2 million tons of meat at slaughter weight at 1.75 thousand tenge yielded 2.1 trillion tenge. Based on the overall calculation at the end of the year, gross agricultural output amounted to 9.5 trillion tenge.
“How realistic is it to double this 9.5 trillion tenge in 4 years and bring it to 19 trillion tenge. As I said above, the volume of gross product is the product of the volume of production and its price. You can keep silent about the price, because if officials double the price in 4 years, then their people will carry them to the dustbin of history. This means we need to double the production of agricultural products,” noted Toleutai Rakhimbekov.
He also considers such a task unattainable. On the one hand, the volume of agricultural products produced depends on the area of crops and the number of farm animals, on the other hand, on their productivity. According to experts, it takes at least 6 years to double the cattle population. As for productivity, the experience of past years shows that indicators are also not growing so quickly. For example, over 30 years, grain yields increased by 4.5%, and the average live weight of cattle - by 8%.
Similarly, the expert questions the achievement of other indicators laid down in the national project:
- increase labor productivity twofold, to 9.1 million tenge;
- annually update agricultural machinery up to 8-10%;
- double the export of agricultural products to $10 billion;
- increase the influx of investment in agriculture by 3.3 times, to 3.2 trillion tenge;
- increase the share of processed agricultural products - milk, meat, oilseeds, rice, corn, buckwheat - up to 70%.
- For example, the share of processed agricultural products is currently 20-30%; the national project aims to increase this figure to 70%.
“How, in what ways are they going to increase the share of processing of agricultural products produced in the country by 2.5-3.5 times in 3-4 years? (...) At the end of 2021, 16.4 million tons of grain were produced, of which about 4 million tons were processed, or less than 25% of the volume of grain production. Of the 443.3 thousand tons of fruit crops produced, only 44.7 thousand tons were processed, or just over 10%. Only 9.8 thousand tons of meat were sent for processing, with a total meat production volume of 1,231.1 thousand tons, that is, 0.8% was processed. Of the total volume of milk produced, 6,247.2 thousand tons of milk, 1,980.6 thousand tons or 31.7% were processed,” noted Toleutai Rakhimbekov.