The Kazakh authorities have long been trying to find a «toehold» in the economy that will help them to «change the world». In other words, to repeat their proven track record of the end of the 1990s — the beginning of the 2000s when Akorda and the First President of Kazakhstan managed to attract large Western corporations as oil-and-gas investors.

Within a relatively short period of time, these corporations had managed to exponentially increase oil extraction and export thus dramatically bolstering the fiscal revenue as well as providing the country with the opportunity to form a strategic reserve, the National Fund of Kazakhstan.

It looks like, today, agriculture has been chosen as one of such «toeholds». The plans of the Kazakh government serve as a clear confirmation of it.

In particular, the press-release published on May 6, 2021, on the website of the Ministry of Agriculture says that «The National Project of Development of Kazakhstan’s Agricultural Industry for 2021-2025» is soon to be enacted and that the implementation of this project will allow «to accomplish such goals as 1) saturating the local market with essential food products; 2) stably increasing the income of 1 mln rural residents; 3) increasing labour productivity by 2.5 times; 4) increasing export of processed agricultural goods by 2 times».  

The reader may learn more on these plans from the governmental press-releases of March 2, 2021 titled «A. Mamin: Over 4 Trillion Tenge To Be Invested in Agriculture By 2025» and «Kazakhstan to Increase Export of Agricultural Goods and Earnings of Agricultural Workers Twice Within the Course of Two Years». 

The first of the aforementioned documents contains the following program statement of Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister Askar Mamin (text in bold hereinafter by KZ.expert).

«The development of the agricultural industry including the saturation of the market with locally-produced goods is one of the Government’s strategic goals. According to the forecasts of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, our country has a real opportunity to become one of the global hubs of food products».

Then, the document says -

«As a result of implementing the said measures, by 2025, the labour productivity in agriculture is to increase by 2.5 times, the export of foods (70% of which will be processed) is to increase twice. The volume of gross agricultural output is to increase by 1.3 times. With that, by 2023, 100% saturation of the local market with locally-produced essential food products is to be achieved».

Let us express our doubts that these strategic plans and goals of the Kazakh government will be implemented. Here is why.

The thing is that the Kazakh authoritarian political system and the «super-presidential» vertical have inherited the «diseases» of the Soviet totalitarian political system and the «super-communist» vertical. In this particular case, we are talking about overestimating the state’s capabilities and underestimating the human element and the market rivalry.

It looks like Akorda and the Library have not yet realised that what the Soviet Union was capable of doing several decades ago due to the fact that it was, to a great degree, isolated from the global market while the state had a monopoly on foreign trade cannot be repeated in modern Kazakhstan, even in theory.

Meanwhile, the governmental plans revealed on March 2, 2021, have a very distinct «planned/administrative smell». To confirm this, let us turn to the press-releases again and present some quotes over-abound with figures.

«To complete these massive-scale tasks, about 400 investment projects in the amount of more than 4 trillion tenge (70-80 projects per year) are to be gradually implemented. This will allow to increase labour productivity in the agricultural industry and create up to 500 thousand new jobs in rural areas».

«For further development of the agricultural industry, the following tasks have been set:

- to saturate the local market with food products at the level of more than 80%;

- to stably increase the income of 1 mln rural residents;

- to increase labour productivity by 2.5 times;

- to increase export of processed food product by 2 times.

To realise the task of saturating the local market with food products, the Ministry has determined the import of which products is to be scaled back. These products include poultry, sausage products, cheese and curd, apples, sugar and fish. 

As of today, the pool of investment projects related to each position has been set for the three upcoming years».

We are not going to analyse the individual plans of the Ministry of Agriculture even though they do need to be critically reviewed by experts, entrepreneurs and scientists. However, we will remark on their common problem: they all originate not from the objective analysis of reality but from the subjective wishes (dreams, estimations) of individual governmental officials, for instance, the Minister of Agriculture Saparkhan Omarov and his team.

For example, we do allow for the possibility that the state, by hook or by crook, will manage to build and launch «6 meat-processing plants with a yield of 77.8 thousand tons» and «by means of current account financing and stimulating farmers to provide livestock for slaughtering» to provide them with some primary produce. However, we do not believe that, by the year 2025, the quality of the Kazakh sausage products will be better than that of the imported goods and, most importantly, that the former will be able to successfully compete for the consumer.

In our opinion, the strategic plans of the Kazakh government related to the agricultural industry (including the «National Project») belong to the type of documents described in a wise saying — «it was very smooth on paper, wish we had a bloody grader».

The only thing we do not know at this point is what kind of pitfalls are awaiting the daydreamers led by Askar Mamin and Saparkhan Omarov. But we are certain that, when the time comes, they will present neat explanations for their failures. Provided they hold on to their their chairs until 2025.