Kazakhstan to increase milk production 35% by 2020
ASTANA. Aug 13 (Interfax) -Kazakhstan plans to increase milk production by 1.7 million tonnes by 2020, said Kazakh Agricultural Minister Asylzhan Mamytbekov.
"The master plan contained in the Agricultural Business 2020 national program aims to increase milk production in Kazakhstan by 1.7 million tonnes by 2020. Today, we import about 1.5 million tonnes of milk," Mamytbekov said at a Cabinet meeting in Astana on Tuesday.
The minister did not provide any information on current milk production volumes.
According to Kazakhstan's statistics agency, milk production in 2012 totaled 4.804 million tonnes, so adding 1.7 million tonnes would increase production by 35%.
The project calls for adding 20 large dairy farms, each with capacity for 1,000-1,200 head of dairy cows, producing a combined 160,000 tonnes of milk, and about 2,000 small dairy farms with 24 to 200 dairy cows, producing a total of 740,000 tonnes of milk. Milk production at existing farms will rise by about 55,000 tonnes.
Overall, addition of new farms and upgrades to existing farms will add about 1 million tonnes of milk production.
"Breed selection efforts and better fodder supply at the existing farms will give us another 700,000 tonnes of milk," the minister said.
Construction of one farm for 100 cows will cost about 100 million tenge ($650,000), he said.
"The tools of the program in this area include investment subsidies amounting to 50% of the cost of vehicles and equipment, a subsidy of 118,000 tenge to acquire each head of cattle, subsidized rates on leasing loans. State support for this project will total 32 million tenge [per farm], or about 33% of total costs," Mamytbekov said.
The official exchange rate on August 13 was 153.13 tenge/$1.
