Agriculture
�The Energy of Kazakhstan�, a magazine-appendix to THE GLOBE presents the announcement of the article �Everything revives after grain� by Ervin GOSSEN. You will be able to read the full variant of the article in the next issue of �The Energy of Kazakhstan� which will be sold in September in the Supermarket �Ramstore�, at �Texaco� filling stations, in �Yubileiny�, near CUM, as well as in hotels The Regent Ankara and Hyatt Regency/Rachat Palace.
Everything revives after grain
E. F. Gossen, the Academician of NAS RK
N.A. Ibadildin
The point is that nobody knows where the way-out is,
We even do not know where the entrance is.
Boris Grebenschikov
Every country has its own advantages. �Do what you can do better than others, and sell the balance to them.�
Kazakhstan is included in the so-called grain zone of the Earth.
There are not too many regions suitable for grain production by their climate conditions and biochemical content of the soil in the Earth: a narrow line in North America (northern USA and Canada), and some European countries (France, Ukraine, southern Russia and Kazakhstan). We may also mention Argentina and Australia. These countries essentially control the international foodstuff market. At the same time, these countries are the main manufacturers of grain.
Due to the economic transformation, which gradually transformed into a continuous economic crisis, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan are no longer present in the grain zone. Geographically these countries are still there, but not in fact.
�To have� and �to be able� are different things. To be a grain producer is a real jump into the 21st century. In the 21st century, the foodstuff problem will be most serious due to both the growth of the population and the deficit of water. To have the potential of a grain producer and not to use it, may only be called a historical self-punishment. You should make use of whatever nature and God grants you. In connection with this, the locusts� invasion to Kazakhstan may be interpreted as a warning and an omen: if you are granted a good land, you should work, otherwise the land will be wasted and lost.
Kazakhstan was a grain power
There was a time, in fact quite recently by historical measures, when Kazakhstan was able to export a little less than 10 million tons of high quality grain per year. In the structure of the world�s consumption, this number is quite small, but on a regional scale it is quite significant.
During the soviet period (1986 to 1990) both the area under crops was greater and the crop capacity was higher, hence there was an export reserve. At the present time, Kazakhstan only covers its requirements. Agriculture may become a locomotive, which will draw the entire economy out. Intensified agriculture requires herbicides and fertilisers. The demand for these materials will stir up the chemical industry. To cultivate the soil agricultural machines will be needed. The demand for these engines will stir up the machine-building branch. This positive chain reaction which can reinvigorate the entire economy will be possible if the agriculture is being restored.
The development of agriculture will result in positive social consequences. First of all, working places will appear in rural districts. This development will stop the steady migration of the rural population to towns. Thus, towns will be released from tension. Rural people will be able to maintain themselves.
The capture of new and old markets in the region, i.e. realisation of the export potential will guarantee both the political authority of Kazakhstan and a much needed inflow of hard currency.
Till the present time, the attitude to the agriculture was an attitude to a peculiar fetish. The agriculture was perceived as something sacred living according to its own laws. The appointment of a new Minister of Agriculture Mr. Mynbaev, a professional economist and financier, demonstrates that for many years for the first time this attitude has changed. The agriculture is not considered as something mysterious. The agriculture is also subordinate to economic laws, according to which all other economic subjects work. The agriculture is a business, and alike any business it is to be economical and gain some profits. The new Minister should prove this.
Kazakhstan was, and with hard work may again become a grain power.
Policy and economy of Kazakhstan agriculture
During the soviet period, Kazakhstan�s agriculture was organised on a wide-scale and mass character. Farm operations were supposed to be large. It was absolutely correct. The agriculture in Kazakhstan�s valleys is most profitable when vast territories are cultivated with the help of highly productive machines. However, the scheme that previously worked collapsed due to many reasons. These reasons sometimes are not of �a climate� character, but of a political one. We will outline two main factors that buried Kazakhstan�s agriculture.
First, Kazakhstan has since 1991, chosen oil production as the main direction of its economic policy. Do you remember talks and slogans that if Kazakhstan is not the second Kuwait, then it is the second Norway? And that Kazakhstan�s wealth will increase completely because of oil. Based upon these objectives, all the resources of the state, both tangible and intellectual were directed to oil excavation, the sale of oil fields, oil tenders, etc. In that time there was a scent of big oil and big money in Kazakhstan. Nobody could say a word about the agriculture. The trust in oil and expectation that �oil will rescue� were not justified. The Asian crisis, a glut of oil in the market, and the high cost of Kazakhstani oil� all shattered this hope.
Second, privatisation was held in Kazakhstan. Privatisation broke the single manufacturing chain in the agriculture, as well as causing the problem of small lands. The privatisation of agriculture was one of the consequences of major and minor political games in Kazakhstan. In these games the most unclaimed one was agriculture.
It is obvious that the redistribution of property and land broke the wide-scale and mass character of the grain agriculture in Kazakhstan.
That was the thoughtless political decision aggravated by unavailability of working capital, when peasants were not able to provide themselves with technique, seeds and chemicals, i.e. with everything that is required for the intensive technology of grain production. All these facts lowered the Kazakhstan agriculture, which was once powerful and modern enough to a primitive level.
We may continue to enumerate reasons. For example, the absence of the sales plans, barter transactions, the disparity of grain prices in comparison with industrial goods. The matter is the same � the state either does not regulate these processes in agriculture or does not pay them enough attention, while the wide-scale method of agriculture is only possible if the state is involved in the process.
The state should determine its position in the agriculture. If prices for Kazakhstan�s main exports decrease, the State functionaries as rationally thinking men will most probably just seek other comparative advantages of Kazakhstan. One of these advantages is agriculture. In this regard, the restoration of the large agricultural producer to bring together the technological chain is the top priority.
Kazakhstan�s agriculture can be restored. The locusts� invasion has just illuminated: a boomerang from the ruined village strikes so strongly, that it literally reaches capital corridors and windows.
In our July 23 issue we offered the readership the worried information of The Diabetic Association of the Republic of Kazakhstan about the �disappearance of 90 mln. tenge planned for buying the anti-diabetic medicine. The latter was absolutely necessary for treatment of diabetes, an incurable disease. The lives of 100000 patients were severely endangered.
THE GLOBE received an open letter of Natalya Tukalevskaya, President of the Diabetic Association of Republic of Kazakhstan, which clarified the situation.
Beginning from May 1999, the Association failed to obtain an answer from the authorities to the question where the money is. Now the answer exists. According to Mrs. Tukalevskaya, the Health Ministry of Kazakhstan quickly responded to the publication and said that the money never disappeared and would be immediately raised to the satisfaction of the association. So no problem anymore.
Natalya Tukalevskaya expresses her regret that it is very difficult to get any kind of information from the authorities and the media is needed to eventually reveal the truth.
All Over the Globe is published by IPA House.
© 1998 IPA House. All Rights Reserved.