Alexander Matvienko, agronomist TOO “Agrokrestyansky dvor”, Akmola region, Republic of Kazakhstan:
– I have been in potato growing for the 14th season, and I have been responsible for this direction in our farm for 13 years. We also cultivate a thousand hectares of wheat, another 100 are given for rapeseed, 500 for barley, 200 for flax and 50 for perennial grasses.
Potatoes occupy only 210 hectares, but the company compensates for small areas with high production efficiency. We receive from 50 to 58 tons of products per hectare, and in some areas – up to 63 tons. This was made possible thanks to a high level of automation, the introduction of advanced technologies and the use of more productive varieties.
On the territory of the republic, potatoes are grown mainly by irrigation. At bagar, at existing costs, the cost of a kilogram of tubers will be about 60-70 tenge ($ 1 / 463.2 tenge), and the yield will be only 17-20 tons per hectare. We carry out irrigation from the Podlesnensky reservoir with a volume of one million cubic meters, fed by meltwater. In total, the farm has 600 hectares of irrigated land, next year we will add another 200. But it will not be possible to increase the area under irrigation in the future, otherwise we will not have enough water during the season.
Today, eight food varieties have been planted in the fields and 12 more are being tested. We want to look at their potential, how they will show themselves in the natural and climatic conditions of Northern Kazakhstan. New varieties are purchased every season, and we evaluate not only productivity and quality, but also how they are stored. We grow seeds for ourselves, annually buying about 40 tons of elite and propagating it to the first reproduction.
Of fungal diseases, late blight, alternariosis and fomosis give us the greatest headache, of bacterial diseases – black leg. We are fighting them by using the most modern arsenal of plant protection products, widely represented on the local market. We prefer to work with the products of the companies “Bayer” and “Syngenta”.
In TOO “Agrokrestyansky Dvor” there is a mini-workshop for processing potatoes, built at the expense of targeted borrowed funds. Up to 2-3 tons of raw materials can be delivered here per day, and at the output we get purified products in vacuum packaging. We are also interested in the topic of deep processing. A year ago, the company signed an agreement with Vi Fry Import LLC on the supply of tubers for a French fries production plant in Russia, in the Lipetsk region.
Agricultural machinery of Western production, which is most in demand among farmers, is represented in the country by several dealers. Most of the market is occupied by GRIMME, AVR and Miedema. We do not experience any difficulties with the purchase of cars and the supply of spare parts.
The sale of food potatoes goes through intermediaries in the South of Kazakhstan and to Astana. The conditions offered by retail chains are not beneficial to us because of the requirements for the fraction and quality of tubers. Own vegetable storage for 6.5 thousand tons allows you to stretch the implementation of the previous harvest until June.
In the last decade, potato growing in Kazakhstan has been developing at a fairly high level. Modern technologies of culture cultivation and storage of agricultural products are used, the direction of processing is gradually growing. I think the sub-sector has a successful future, and in many respects this is the merit of our authorities, which provide serious support to farmers.
