Trapped Harvest: How Infrastructural Collapse is Devaluing Farmers' Labor

 

This season, farmers in the northern regions are facing a paradox: a bumper crop, which should have been a reward for hard work, has turned into a logistical trap. Wheat, flax, and rapeseed have been harvested, but moving them from the fields is practically impossible. The harvest is trapped, and its profitability is melting away with each day spent waiting at the gates of elevators, which have become the "bottleneck" of the entire harvest campaign.

The problem has become systemic. "The elevators are full, they don't know where to send it," is the common refrain from farmers in various districts. "As always, everything is clogged, there's no space."

What looks like success for statistics—a high gross yield—has turned into a collapse for the farmer on the ground. Farmers report being forced to wait in gigantic queues to deliver their grain. "The queues are huge - people are waiting for two days," shares one farm manager.

This logistical paralysis has a direct economic dimension. The speed of crop removal has plummeted. Farms that would normally make five or six trips to the elevator per day are now struggling to complete one. "We would have moved everything long ago," laments a farmer, calculating the lost time and profit.

Farmers without their own storage facilities are in the most vulnerable position. They are "suffering," forced to leave the harvest wherever they can, including directly in open-air piles ("gurtakh").

The causes of the collapse, according to the farmers themselves, lie not only in a lack of capacity but also in management and competition. Firstly, there is a sharp conflict of interest: "The elevators are all private; they bring in their own grain first, and we stand and wait in line for two days." Secondly, the inefficient organization at the reception points is taking its toll. There are direct complaints about staff shortages and slowness: "They don't have enough people, they work one shift, everything is slowing down. There's no order."

The situation is exacerbated by inter-regional logistics. One elevator, according to a farmer, is clogged because "they are bringing [grain] from all over the Akmola region," leaving no space for local producers.

This crisis has starkly exposed the economic stratification in the agricultural sector. While some wait in line for days, others—typically larger farms—watch from the sidelines. The secret to their calm is simple: "We have our own warehouses and dryers, so we don't depend on the elevator—we do everything ourselves."

Having one's own storage and processing infrastructure has become the key survival factor this year. It allows farms not only to avoid queues but also to take a wait-and-see approach to the market. Farmers trapped at the elevator gates are forced to either not sell the harvest at all, "waiting for a miracle," or incur losses. Meanwhile, costs for fuel, spare parts, and salaries continue to rise.

The most unfortunate part is that the situation is not unique. "It's the same this year as it was last year," summarizes one of the farmers. The 2025 harvest has shown that without an urgent solution to the "bottleneck" at the elevators and the development of private storage infrastructure, the agricultural sector risks remaining a hostage of its own success.