ASTANA (Reuters) — Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest grain producer, is on track to export nine million tonnes of grain by the end of the current marketing year on June 30, Sagintai Zhumazhanov, a senior Agriculture Ministry official, told Reuters on Thursday.
Kazakhstan’s exports of grain by rail rose to 7.66 million tonnes between July 1 and May 10, from 6.07 million in the same period of 2012-13, Agriculture Ministry data showed.
Railways account for most grain exports from the steppe nation of 17 million. The Caspian sea port of Aktau in western Kazakhstan can handle between 500,000 and 600,000 tonnes of grain annually.
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“We are on track to export nine million tonnes of grain, although we expect a seasonal decline (in exports) in early summer,” said Zhumazhanov, a senior official in the ministry’s farming department.
Kazakhstan exported 7.1 million tonnes of grain in the 2012-13 crop season — mainly to its Central Asian neighbours and the Caspian states of Iran and Azerbaijan.
Sowing has started in the main grain belt in the north, and Zhumazhanov said the total area sown to grains would be 39.3 million acres, unchanged from last year, though the area under wheat would shrink by more than 741,000 acres.
Official data show that Kazakhstan sowed a total of 32 million hectares to wheat last year.
Zhumazhanov said the level of moisture in the soil was “not altogether bad” this year.
“Thanks to autumn and winter precipitations, the level of moisture in all regions is above average … and besides, meteorologists give us a good forecast for June and June,” he said. “This is just what we need.”
Millions of acres of land were upturned and sown to grains during the Soviet-era “Virgin Lands” campaign in the 1950-60s.
But due to the fickle weather of its extreme continental climate, Kazakhstan’s grain harvests may vary substantially each year.
The grain crop rose to 18.2 million tonnes by clean weight last year from 12.9 million tonnes in 2012 when the harvest was hit by a severe drought. The country reaped a post-Soviet record harvest of 27 million tonnes in 2011.
