📊 Kazakhstan’s Farmers on Track for a Record Sugar Beet Harvest

 

 🔹 The sugar beet harvest in 2024 is expected to exceed 1.1 million tons, more than double the previous year's yield.

 🔹 Despite the large harvest, sugar production decreased by 35.6%, leading to an increase in imports, primarily from Russia.

 🔹 Kazakhstan continues to actively export sugar: in January-July 2024, exports rose 405 times compared to the same period last year.

 

Kazakh farmers are nearing the end of the sugar beet harvest season, and the results are expected to be impressive. According to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan, in 2024, the gross sugar beet harvest may exceed 1.1 million tons, which is more than double the amount collected last year. This record was achieved thanks to a significant expansion of sown areas, which increased by 86.7% — from 13.5 to 25.2 thousand hectares. Government support also played a key role, with funding for planting and harvesting operations tripling compared to the previous year.

 However, the final results of processing this year’s harvest will not be known until next year. Statistics for the first seven months of 2024 show that sugar production in the country has declined: during this period, Kazakhstan’s factories produced 93.4 thousand tons of sugar, 35.6% less than in the same period in 2023. This was due to stagnation in the previous season, and as a result, Kazakh processors were unable to fully meet demand.

 The share of domestic sugar production in the overall resource base continues to decline. While in 2023, it accounted for 43.2%, this year, that figure dropped to 29%, giving way to imports, which increased by 19.9% in January-July 2024. The majority of imported sugar comes from Russia.

 Despite the domestic deficit, Kazakhstan is actively exporting sugar. In January-July 2024, 72.5 thousand tons of sugar were exported to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan, accounting for 77.7% of the total production in the country. This is a record for the past several years, with exports increasing 405 times compared to the same period in the previous year.

 Regarding the temporary export ban introduced by the government in June, most of the sugar was exported before it came into effect. According to the ministry, 68 thousand tons of sugar were exported before the ban started in mid-June.

 The production capacity of Kazakhstan's sugar factories was only partially utilized last year. Plants processing beet sugar operated at 61.1% of their capacity, while cane sugar and raw sugar producers used about 54-59% of their capacity.

 This year, the sugar beet harvest will be processed at three of the largest factories in the country: the "Merken Sugar" plant in the Zhambyl region, as well as the "Aksu Kant" and Koksu plants in the Zhetysu region. All of these enterprises are expected to operate at full capacity to process the entire harvested crop.

 In the future, Kazakhstan will need to address the issue of ensuring its domestic market is sufficiently supplied, as imports continue to play a critical role in meeting the population's sugar demand.