The Kazakhstan Ministry of Agriculture has issued a plan for the development of the country's poultry meat sector to the year 2020, according to Zhamal Zharmagambetova in a GAIN report for the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service.

According to the Statistics Agency of the Republic of Kazakhstan, poultry farms produced 94 per cent of the 123,100 tonnes of poultry meat in 2012.

On 1 January 2013, there were:

• 28 enterprises producing table eggs with a total annual capacity of 2.356 billion eggs in 2012. The eight large plants, each with a capacity over 100 million eggs per year, produce about 1.2 billion eggs or 51 per cent of total output.
• 18 poultry meat plants with a total capacity of 116,000 tonnes in 2012. Four large plants produce approximately 79,000 tonnes or 71 per cent of the total annual production of poultry meat.
• There is one parent stock multiplier farm (JSC Astana Kus), producing hatching eggs and day-old broiler chicks.
• There are two broiler parent stock farms for production of hatching eggs, with an output of 12.3 million eggs and 4.2 million day-old broiler chicks.
• One parent stock farm produces duck hatching eggs, with an annual output of 2.345 million eggs.
• Five parent stock farms produce layer hatching eggs, with an output totalling 98.8 million eggs and 7,297 day-old chicks.

The Kazakhstan Poultry Producers Union says there are in addition two temporarily seized poultry plants including Ruby Rose (broilers) and Cheremshanskaya poultry plant (layers), as well as small, private ostrich and quail farms.

Most of the broiler plants are located in the southern and eastern regions of the republic, while layer farms are located in the northern and in the central part of the republic.

The Kazakh poultry industry declined markedly between 1990 and year 2000 but it has made significant progress since although the country remains quite dependent on imports.

The main objective of the master plan is to increase poultry meat production in Kazakhstan.

In 2012, per-capita consumption of poultry meat was estimated to be 18.7kg, of which, 7.3kg was produced by the country and 61 per cent was imported. In 2012, total production was 123,000 tonnes and consumption was almost 314,000 tonnes with the balance (192,000 tonnes) coming from imports.

The report says that the general level of technology used in operating poultry establishments is old and outdated equipment. However, some plants have upgraded their equipment in the last decade.

When it comes to the key performance indicators for poultry production, Kazakh domestic establishments lag behind their western counterparts. Feed conversion ratio, for example, is typically between 2.0 and 2.5.

There are no intrinsic factors for the Kazakh enterprises that would prevent them from reaching the targets typically achieved in other countries with the same genetic stocks, the report says.

There is substantial spare production capacity in the Republic to rear poultry, and to produce and process poultry products. Output of 180,000 tonnes per year could be achieved with the existing plants.

The contribution of households to overall poultry meat production has been declining.

The US is the leading exporter of poultry meat, including 100,000 tonnes of poultry that were imported within the quota. Imported meat is cheaper than locally produced poultry, and there is growing demand for chilled products although logistics require investment to meet this demand.

At present, the meat chicken and layer parent stock is represented by 10 breeder farms in Akmolinskaya, Almatinskaya, East-Kazakhs, Karagandinskaya, Kostanaiskaya, North- Kazakhstan and South-Kazakhstan oblasts.

Poultry producers in Kazakhstan use high-yielding western crosses to produce eggs and poultry meat and there are no major poultry breeders.

One strategic objective for further development of the country's meat chicken industry is to build new and expand existing first- and second-level multipliers so that Kazakhstan is able to reduce imports of broilers eggs in the near future.It would also enable the development of strains suited to domestic demand.

On feed production, the report says that existing compound feed producers in the Republic do not meet the quality standards required by the poultry plants and so most of the plants have installed and are operating their own feed production capacities.

There are 33 compound feed mills in the Republic of Kazakhstan, only two of which are registered as medium-sized or large enterprises. The remaining enterprises focus on the production of flour and baked goods.

Overall, feed mills are working at 26 per cent of full capacity as the result of outdated technology. Poor feed is not acceptable for the poultry industry.

It is imperative that poultry plants adopt the technologies to process up to two million tonnes of chicken manure annually by 2020 to protect the population and the environment, according to the report. There is demand for good quality organic fertilisers for horticulture and crop production.

The regulatory framework covering all aspects of farming, including the poultry industry, is founded on a set of essential laws and regulations.

The law on veterinary medicine was introduced in July 2002. It was designed to support veterinary and sanitary safety and covers the safety of products, animal raw materials, veterinary drugs, feed and feed additives, and the protection of the population from zoonotic diseases.

Poultry Industry Challenges

The main challenges facing the industry have been identified as:

• high feed costs
• cash flow shortage
• outdated technology and unfinished modernisation
• dumping of cheap imports
• high interest rates
• inadequate high-quality feed supply and
• lack of qualified personnel

As well as high feed ingredient prices, there is no domestic production in Kazakhstan of vitamin and mineral additives or premixes and their import can be as much as 10 per cent of the total feed cost.

Meeting Future Demand

The population of Kazakhstan is expected to grow to 18.7 million by 2020, while poultry meat consumption is forecast to increase from the current 25kg to 32kg per person per year by that time.

This would put the country's annual poultry meat needs at up to 400,000 tonnes. With the level of imports expected by 2020 to be about 56,000 tonnes per year, an increase in domestic production of 250,000 tonnes needs to be achieved.

Today, less than 50 per cent of poultry meat is used for value-added processing in the Republic, and the share of chilled products is about nine per cent of the total sales volumes. This is expected to reach at least 80 per cent by 2020.

To meet demand, chicken plants need to upgrade their facilities to meet modern workplace hygiene and environmental requirements, according to the report, including new technology for refrigeration, packaging, waste treatment, laboratories.

According to the report, to achieve this progress, new approaches are required, such as investment subsidies to modernise and expand production capacity as well as continued support for poultry breeding and live production programmes.