Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Agriculture Umirzak Shukeyev reported that according to preliminary data of the regional departments of agriculture, in 2018 crops will be harvested from an area of 15 million hectares, including wheat amounting to 11.1 million hectares. Harvesting areas of oilseeds make up 2.8 million hectares, which exceeds the level of the previous year by 0.4 million hectares.
"In general, the gross grain harvest in the republic is projected at 20 million tons. The production of oil seeds is expected at 2.3 million tons. These volumes allow us to increase the export potential of grain to 9 million tons, oil seeds to 1 million ton, to provide raw materials for feed and oil refineries," said Shukeyev.
To date, cereals have been harvested from an area of more than 8.9 million hectares or 59% of those to be harvested, 11.2 million tons of grain have been harvested at a yield of 12.5 centners per hectare. At the same time, 86% of cereals were harvested in the southern regions, 89% in the western regions, 56% in the northern, central and eastern regions.
According to Shukeyev, 6.1 million hectares of grain crops remain to be cleaned. With a daily capacity of existing combine harvesters of about 800,000 hectares and favorable weather conditions, it is possible to complete the harvesting in the first ten days of October.
The demand of agricultural producers in diesel fuel for harvesting for July-October is 394,000 tons. This requirement was approved by the joint schedule with the Ministry of Energy for the refineries of the regions. As of September 14, 268,000 tons (68%) were shipped for harvesting. The average price of the reduced diesel fuel for September with delivery for SHPP in the regions is about 165 tg / l (191 tg / l at the filling station), which is 14% cheaper than market prices).
"Against the background of abundant rainfall, there is an increased humidity of grain arriving at grain elevators, which requires additional drying of grain and oilseed crops and, accordingly, the costs of grain receiving enterprises for the purchase of diesel fuel for drying. According to the regional akimats, more than 50% of the harvested crop has an increased humidity of over 20% at the base 13.5%," Shukeyev said.
According to him, applications have been received from six regions to allocate additional volume of diesel fuel for October-November period for the drying of 85,000 tons of grain.
In general, 96% of the agricultural machinery that is available is prepared and accepted for harvesting. Currently, the agricultural producers have more than 14,000 high-performance combine harvesters, which are supposed to remove more than 70% of the harvest area of cereals.
"With a view to stimulating the acquisition of agricultural machinery and providing financial support to the agriculturalproducers, the ministry has resumed a program to lower the interest rate for leasing agricultural equipment from 2018, and an investment subsidy program has been updated," Shukeyev said.
For the implementation of this program in 2018, 21.3 billion tenge was allocated. At the same time, it is envisaged to subsidize leasing of agricultural machinery with a reward rate of no more than 17% per annum, of which 10% is compensated at the expense of the republican budget. In addition, from 2016, the payment of investment subsidies for the acquisition of agricultural machinery.
Currently, there are 196 licensed grain receiving enterprises (HPPs) with a total storage capacity of about 13.6 million tons, which, on the basis of a license issued by the akimats, provide warehousing services with the issue of grain receipts. In the planned order, work is underway to prepare the material and technical base of the HPP to receive grain of a new crop. The total amount of available grain storage capacity is 26.7 million tonnes, which is enough to store grain in view of the expected new crop.
In his turn, Deputy Minister of Energy M. Dosmukhambetov reported that the schedule for fixing the regions at the refinery for the supply of diesel fuel for field work in 2018, the demand for SHPP was approved in the amount of 394,400 tonnes, including the Atyrau Oil Refinery with 116,000 tonnes, the Pavlodar Petrochemical Plant with 149,000 tons, Shymkent Refinery with 129,400 tonnes.
"As of September 14, the shipment of diesel fuel to the producers with planned 394,400 tons, amounted to 255,800 tons. All paid volumes are shipped in priority order. The ministry carries out daily monitoring of the shipment of diesel fuel to the agricultural producers," the vice minister said.
As for the diesel fuel price for agricultural producers, the recommended for conducting autumn field work in July 2018 was 180,000 tg / t, in August and September 181,000 tg / t. At the same time, the average market price for the gas station in Kazakhstan is 188.1 tg / l.
The governors of the Akmola region M. Murzalin, the North Kazakhstan region K. Aksakalov, and the Kostanay region A. Mukhambetov reported on the situation in the main grain-growing regions.
Reported by Egemen (Kazakhstan).
