In an interview with IA "Kabar," academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Kyrgyzstan and Doctor of Agricultural Sciences Zhamin Akimaliev emphasized that the agricultural sector of the country, despite unfavorable weather conditions, demonstrated remarkable resilience. According to him, even in conditions of drought and low water availability, agriculture was able to achieve growth in gross production. He also highlighted the importance of reforms being carried out in this sector, which contributed to improving food security.
“This year has been challenging due to the lack of irrigation water, which negatively affected the yield of major agricultural crops. In particular, the grain crops suffered losses, and as a result, we harvested only 550 thousand tons of food wheat against a need of 1 million tons. This situation forces us to import the missing volumes of grain from Russia and Kazakhstan,” he explained.
The drought also negatively impacted the yield of sugar beets, which in turn reduced its production volume and did not allow for the provision of the population with domestically produced vegetable oil.
Nevertheless, the republic was able to produce a sufficient quantity of other agricultural products and prevent a decline in livestock farming.
Currently, the republic meets the needs for 6 out of 9 products necessary for food security. At the same time, three categories—wheat grain, vegetable oil, and fruit and berry crops—remain challenging tasks for us.
It is important to note that this year, domestic agriculture successfully coped with the tests of resilience, increasing gross production by 2 percent compared to the previous successful year. A significant contribution to this growth was made by the expansion of agricultural product processing due to preferential loans provided by the state to peasant farms,” concludes Zhamin Akimaliev.
