BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr.7
By Nargiz Sadikhova - Trend:
The area of irrigated land will be expanded by two times over the course of next 10 years in Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan’s Minister of Agriculture Saparkhan Omarov said, Trend reports with reference to the ministry.
He said that currently 1.5 million ha of agriculture land in Kazakhstan is irrigated. At the same time modern irrigation technologies are used only on 14 percent of the irrigated land, whereas outdated uneconomical methods are used on the rest of the irrigated land.
Omarov noted that in order to motivate farmers to switch to more modern methods of irrigation the government is currently offering investment subsidies with refund of a half of expenditures spent of irrigation systems. At the same time, conditions are being created to educate farmers and disseminate knowledge, including through a network of demonstration farms. Provision of preferential financing for the purchase of irrigation systems under the ‘Economy of Simple Things’ program is overseen.
“The benefits of the irrigated agriculture are obvious. Irrigated agriculture leads to crops productivity increasing by 2-3 times. The increase in gross yield is what makes irrigated agriculture investment attractive, despite costs of acquiring irrigation systems,” Omarov said.
Talking diversification of the irrigated land, Omariv said that currently the majority of the irrigated land is used for sowing wheat and barley.
He said that in the nearest future the ministry is looking to change the situation by sowing more vegetable, melon and fodder crops on the irrigated land.
“Within the framework of the import substitution goals set by Kazakhstan’s president, a new crop area plan has been developed by the ministry in order to switch to highly profitable crops growing and step-by-step expansion o the irrigated land area. The document oversees two times increase of the irrigated land over the period up to 2030. The regional akimats (administrative centers) were notified on the plans,” the minister said.
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