Kazakhstan, Astana, April 9 / D.Mukhtarov /
Prime Minister Serik Akhmetov has instructed akims (governors) of the country's regions to monitor the use of each hectare of agricultural land.
"I instruct the Ministry of Regional Development to continue the inventory and the regional akims to take steps for the usage of each hectare of unused agricultural land and to continue work on the organisation of the use of remote pastures, addressing the question of water provision," Akhmetov said at a government meeting.
The results of the interim review of the first phase of the inventory of farmland will be reported to the head of state, he said.
The Prime Minister also instructed the governors to begin preparations for the second phase of the land inventory.
"Measures for the second phase should be taken more specifically and with consideration of previous mistakes. There is a need to improve this work," the government head said.
The Deputy Minister of Regional Development of Kazakhstan Kairbek Uskenbaev said at a government meeting that over two million hectares of agricultural land are not being used in the country.
"We mostly do not use the pastures which constitute 77 per cent, about 2.3 million hectares. Out of these, the land allocated for maintaining farming on an area of 1.5 million hectares constitutes more than 50 per cent, including 407,000 hectares of arable land, of which 200,000 hectares are low yield," Uskenbaev said.
According to him, the evidence of non-use of agricultural land has been identified over an area of three million hectares. An inventory of farmland held in Kazakhstan is in three stages from 2012-2014. The first phase of the process has now been completed.