Meat price increases prompt policy shift Kazakhstan ramps up livestock industry development

Zhumanharin pointed out that in the past period, the focus of government policies has mainly been on the planting industry, and now it has reached a stage where the development of animal husbandry must be highly emphasized. One of the important reasons for this adjustment by the government is the significant increase in domestic meat prices this year. 2026 will be a pivotal year for the comprehensive development of agriculture. Over the past two years, we have invested a large amount of capital in the planting industry. Next, we will carry out similar work in the animal husbandry sector, he said. According to the introduction, to support industry practitioners, the government is preparing to launch a large-scale support plan named "Igilik," focusing on the improvement and cultivation of high-yield beef and dairy cattle breeds. Meanwhile, the government has also initiated an important project to ensure feed supply. A large-scale project located in Turkestan Province is about to be completed. It will build a processing workshop that can meet the feed demand of 50,000 livestock and simultaneously establish a livestock trading market. The project will fully introduce Australian technology, Zhumanharin said. Zhumanharin emphasized that in the future, Kazakhstan plans to promote this advanced technological model nationwide to drive the modernization transformation of the domestic animal husbandry. In addition, he also stated that the government is closely monitoring the supply and demand balance of meat in the domestic market. Our meat exports have approached historical high levels. This year, the export volume has reached about 30,000 tons, and the total export amount for the year is expected to reach 40,000 tons. However, the expansion of export scale has also had a chain reaction on domestic market prices. Therefore, we have decided to implement a meat export quota system for enterprises that own their own fattening farms and meat processing plants, because the exported products are mainly processed and exported by these meat processing plants, he said.