ASTANA, Kazakhstan, December 12. Ensuring food security is an urgent task for Kazakhstan, said President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, Trend reports.
As he noted, it is necessary to increase the share of processed products in the agro-industrial complex to 70 percent within three years.
Tokayev pointed out that major investment projects are being implemented to reduce dependence on imports of the agriculture products.
According to him, in the near future, 115 dairy farms with a production volume of up to 600,000 tons of milk per year and 15 large poultry farms with a total capacity of up to 120,000 tons of meat per year will be built.
"These are not just numbers, but specific tasks," Tokayev said.
According to him, the implementation of each such large-scale project directly affects the quality of life of rural residents and opens up great opportunities for regional development.
Tokayev noted that the comprehensive development of rural areas is a priority for Kazakhstan.
The volume of gross agricultural output in Kazakhstan increased by 3.2 percent in the first half of 2023 and amounted to 2.1 trillion tenge (about $4.4 billion)
The growth was achieved mainly due to a 3.3 percent increase in livestock production volumes. Meat production increased by 4.5 percent (1 million tons in live weight) and milk by 2.9 percent (3.2 million tons).
In 2022, the volume of gross agricultural production increased by 9.1 percent and amounted to 9.3 trillion tenge (about $19.5 billion). This happened due to an increase in crop production by 15 percent. Favorable weather conditions made it possible to carry out the harvesting campaign without downtime and harvest one of the best grain harvests in the last 10 years, which reached 22.8 million tons.