Kazakhstan Wheat: Above-Average Estimated Yield Offsets a Decrease in Sown Area

The 2015/16 Kazakhstan wheat crop has benefited from generally favorable weather to date, including generous precipitation and moderate temperatures. USDA forecasts output at 14.0 million metrictons, up 1.0 million tons from last year, with yield forecast at 1.22 tons per hectare, up 12 percent from last year and 14 percent above the 5-year average. Harvested area is estimated at 11.5 million hectares, down 0.4 million hectares from last year and consistent with a steady reduction in the area sown to wheat over the past six years. Spring wheat comprises 80 percent of the country’s total wheat output. Spring wheat is planted from late May to early June and is harvested from early September through early October.

The spring sowing campaign encountered significant planting delays due to persistent rain during most of May, but the arrival of dry weather in late May enabled planting to rapidly accelerate. According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, spring-grain planting was completed only one week later than last year with sown area reaching the official forecast of 14.5 million hectares. According to a U.S. agricultural attaché report, however, as much as 500,000 hectares of the area reportedly sown to spring grains in the prime wheat zone were not actually planted due to the excessive wetness and a lack of serviceable machinery on some agricultural enterprises. Moreover, some local specialists maintain that the planting delays in northern Kazakhstan approached one month rather than the one week suggested by the official planting data. Late planting usually results in delays in crop development which in turn tends to trigger alarms about potential weather-related harvest complications. Years marked by late planting, however, are not necessarily years of delayed harvest or high abandonment. In a typical year, between 0.2 and 0.6 million hectares of the area sown to wheat will remain unharvested due to summer drought or unfavorable harvest weather. Over the past ten years, the highest abandonment rates have occurred during years of excessive summer dryness, such as 2010 and 2012 when area losses exceeded 1.0 million hectares. Because of the favorable weather to date, below-average losses are forecast for 2015.

Satellite-derived vegetative indices for July indicate that this season’s wheat yield will be above average and higher than last year but will likely not reach the record level achieved in 2011. The year-to-year improvement is especially pronounced in the Kostanay region, which accounts for about one-third of total Kazakhstan wheat production. Subsurface soil moisture was fully replenished throughout the main spring wheat region following the abundant early-spring rain, and soil moisture has remained adequate during the growing season. Crops benefited also from the continued use of moisture-saving crop production methods (including no-till technology), and an increase in the use of phosphorus fertilizers. Although this season’s relatively wet weather has contributed to above-average weed and disease infestation, Kazakhstan’s imports of agrichemicals, including herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides are all up from last year.

Kazakhstan wheat area has decreased by about 20 percent since 2009 due in part to a government policy emphasizing "rational land use," which encourages agricultural enterprises to diversify their output by reducing wheat area and increasing the area sown to feed crops and oilseeds. Government incentives include high financial subsidies for non-wheat crops, and crop producers report that these measures strongly influence their planting decisions. An increasing number of farmers are learning how to plant rapeseed, flax, and sunflowers, all of which deliver higher profitability than wheat. For instance, for farms in the Kostanay region from 2009 to 2014 profitability for wheat was 49 percent, compared to 90 percent for sunflowerseed and 107 percent for flax. Between 2009 and 2015, the area planted to grain crops (mostly wheat) decreased by 2.3 million hectares (or 13 percent), from 17.2 to 14.9 million hectares. During the same time, oilseeds area increased by 0.8 million hectares (66 percent), from 1.2 to 2.0 million hectares, forage-crop area increased by 1.2 million hectares (46 percent), from 2.5 to 3.7 million hectares, and food-crop area increased by 92,000 hectares (28 percent), from 333,000 to 425,000 hectares.

This report has been published by the Office of Global Analysis (OGA), International Production Assessment Division (IPAD). The valuable contribution of Zhamal Zharmagambetova, USDA agricultural specialist at the USDA Office of Agricultural Affairs in Astana, Kazakhstan, is gratefully acknowledged. Current USDA area and production estimates for grains and other agricultural commodities are available at PSD Online. For more information contact Mark.Lindeman@fas.usda.gov. Visit Crop Explorer at http://www.pecad.fas.usda.gov/cropexplorer/.