Kazakh Harvest Almost Done
17/10/11 -- The Kazakhstan grain harvest is 98% complete say the Ministry there, producing 27.6 MMT in bunker weight and with yields up almost 100%. That suggests that the recent Ministry estimate for a clean weight crop of a post-Soviet record 25 MMT is pretty much spot on. (And explains why these guys were looking rather pleased with themselves when I met them in Kiev back in the summer).
With 85% of the planted area this year given over to wheat that suggests a wheat crop of around 21.25 MMT this season, 2.25 MMT more than the USDA's latest prediction.
A report on Reuters today says that the country's state-owned grain trading company pegs export potential at 13 MMT this season. If 85% of those exports were wheat then that would equate to a tad over 11 MMT, 2.5 MMT more than the USDA project.
Kazakhstan Hits Grain Harvest Target
12/10/11 -- Kazakhstan have reached their 25 MMT grain harvest target with 6% of the crop still left to harvest I see.
Having cut 15.1 million hectares, or 93.7% of the planted area, this season's harvest now stands at 25.7 MMT - 89% up on last year. That's a record for the post Soviet era I believe and will leave them well placed to attempt to reach their targeted 10 MMT of exports in 2011/12.
Throw in Ukraine's stated 24 MMT export ambitions for the current season and there's no collective shortage of grains waiting to come out of the FSU - Russian export duties or not.
Kazakhstan Latest
13/04/11 -- According to the FAO planting of the 2011 mainly wheat spring cereal crops is underway in the main growing areas of Akmola, Kostanai, North Kazakhstan, and Pavlodar.
Spring crops account for 95 percent annual wheat production. Official forecasts of the area planted to grains in 2011 have been revised downwards to 15.9 million hectares, which is some 5 percent lower the 2010 actual level of 16.7 million hectares, they say.
In spite of below average precipitation during the first quarter of 2011, soil moisture is reported to be adequate for planting operations, due to the high snowmelt. The minor winter cereal crops survived winter better than last year, when crops were badly damaged by frosts, they add.
Overall, and assuming a recovery in yields after last year’s drought-reduced level, the 2011 wheat production is forecast by FAO at around 16 MMT, significantly above the 2010 level of 10 MMT.
Kazakh Harvest Not As Bad As Feared Say Ministry
The harvest in Kazakhstan appears to have got off more lightly than neighbouring drought-hit Russia this year. The Ag Ministry say that the country will harvest 16 MMT of grain this year, 20% down on last season, but significantly better than the 13.5 MMT that was being predicted a month or two ago. They estimate that the country will still be able to export 8 MMT of grain in 2010/11. Wheat typically accounts for around 80% of the Kazakh harvest, implying a crop of 12.8 MMT this season, some 1.3 MMT more than the USDA's latest estimate. Of course, they could be lying.
Kazakhstan
The State Marketing Company say that Kazakhstan will produce 14.5-15 MMT of grains this year, of which 11.9 MMT will be wheat. Their wheat estimate is a little higher than the USDA's recently revised 11.5 MMT number.
Unfortunately we are unable to get confirmation from "Stan" our own man on the ground, who appears to have gone AWOL, enforced to marry a yak in a shotgun wedding by all accounts. "She told me she was sixteen guv, honest."
Stan The Man
Contact has been made with Kazakh Stan in some Godforsaken remote part of the former Soviet state. Here's what he has to say from the field:
"still very dry here. Not as warm as I’d expected (high 20s/low 30s) and we had some rain on Monday (when I arrived on farm – I said it was a present from Scotland!) – but not all areas got it & amounts were variable.
"SOSR flowering here – but crops are thin & very short (lower than knee-height!). Definitely not going to be a high yielding season – unfortunately."
Kazakhstan Grain Crop Seen 26-31 Percent Lower In 2010
Sadly there is no word yet from "Stan" our man on the ground (I suspect that there isn't an internet cafe on every street corner in Kazakhstan), so we are going to have to run with official Ministry figures for the time being. Even they paint a pretty bleak picture.
First the good news, they say that the country exported 8.3 MMT of grains and flour in the 2009/10 marketing year, an increase of more than a third on the previous season.
Now the not so good news, exports in 2010/11 will drop to around 6.5 MMT.
Now the really bad news, the ongoing drought is set to cut this year's grain production to 14.5-15.5 MMT, down around 26-31% on last season.
Kazakh Stan
Our man "Stan" has come back to Blightly for a few days "to cool off" and "hang out with some women that don't have long bushy beards" before heading back to the frying pan that is Kazakhstan tomorrow. I wonder idly if Jet2 do flights from Leeds/Bradford? Stag weekends in Kazakhstan, women in kaftan's with long bushy beards gyrating seductively around a scaffolding pole. It might catch on.
Anyway, "Stan" says that when he left, "they were suffering a serious drought – only having had 7mm of rain since 1st April – so wheat was wilting – literally & OSR was being desiccated in situ – as they also have those very strong drying winds – so not sure what to expect next week..!!!"
More as we get it....
Russian/Kazakh Wheat Production Under Threat
The Russian Ministry have dropped their 2010/11 grain production estimate, saying that drought in the main southern and central areas of the country will reduce output by 3-6 MMT from their previous estimate of 90-93 MMT. That implies a crop of around 87 MMT, 10 MMT down on last season.
The Ministry have been uncharacteristically bullish about grain production hopes all season. This latest estimate brings them into line with last month's forecast from SovEcon of 84-89 MMT.
If recent history is anything to go by, SovEcon always seem to be (at least) one step of the game ahead of the Ministry. It seems that they still are, as today they have cut their estimate to 82-86 MMT, and warned that it could go lower as soaring temperatures and lack of moisture continue to plague the region.
A state of emergency has been declared in Tatarstan (marked 1 on the map below), where almost a million hectares, a third of the planted area, is said to have been lost A similar area has suffered crop damage in nearby Bashkorostan (2), with hot and dry conditions also causing damage in Voronezh (3), Samara (4), Saratov (5), Ulyanovsk (6) and Orenburg (7).
For your convenience I've stitched a couple of maps together, highlighting the major wheat areas in the region and also neighbouring northern Kazakhstan, which has also been suffering from a similar affliction to Russia.
The red line marks the Russian/Kazakh border, with the main growing regions highlighted in the darker green. The three main Kazakh wheat regions Kostanai, North Kazakhstan, and Akmola, account for about 70 percent of the country's total wheat output.
I've also thrown in the USDA's latest percent of normal precipitation map for Apr 1st up until Jun 20th. The following article is well worth a read in conjunction with these maps.
Historically, grain production in Kazakhstan suffers from serious drought two out of every five crop seasons, according to Mark Lindeman of the USDA. "Since virtually none of the wheat is irrigated, yield and production are marked by frequent and sharp year-to-year fluctuations," he says. See Kazakhstan Wheat Production: An Overview here 
Kazakh Rumblings
Newly arrived onto the international wheat export scene, Kazakhstan isn't facing such a bumper harvest in 2010. Soaring temperatures topping 100C and very scant rainfall since spring crops were planted into a dry seedbed could cut wheat production quite sharply this season.
Karim Masimov, the Kazakh Prime-Minister has prophetically said that the nation has sufficient grain stocks to cover it's domestic needs in the event of a bad harvest this year.
Meanwhile Kazakhstan agribusiness Altyn Mai are to open a new flour mill in southwestern Kazakhstan worth 1.25 billion tenge (two pounds fifty), which will process 11,000 MT of wheat a month from the company's own farms in the Altynsarinskom and Mendykarinskom regions.
My Man Stan In Kazakhstan
The word on the streets from sunny Kazakhstan is that despite the intervention of the local Mullah and the slaughtering of assorted small young animals there hasn't been much, if any rain, this past week.
With crops having been sown into a largely dry seedbed, and weekend temperatures of 37-42C, spring wheat there is not going to be getting off to a great start with the crop struggling to emerge and establish. 
Kazakhstan Eyes Bioethanol Market
Keen to have a slice of any cake that's going, party-pooping Kazakhstan are turning their attention to the bioethanol market as the next big thing.
Their Minister of Agriculture says that the country will expand it's existing bioethanol capacity to two billion litres "in the nearest future". That's five Ensus's running at full tilt to you and me. Not that the one Ensus we've got runs at full tilt yet, let alone another four of the buggers as well, but you get my drift.
Well, Akylbek Kyrishbaev as the Kazakh Minister of Agriculture is called - blimey that's a mouthful isn't it missus? Yes, where was I, erm, Aky my old mucker as I call him reckons that they can use fallow agricultural land to ramp up wheat production to the required levels to fuel the expansion. Nice pun, Nogger.
Kazakhstan currently has just the one wheat refinery, which processes around 220,000 MT of wheat per year into gluten, starch and bioethanol. Another five Ensus's would require around a further 5-6 MMT of wheat. That's wheat that they'd rather like to export having just networked like crazy to get themselves in with those wheat-loving document-forgers the Egyptians.
If they can't ramp production up to the required levels, then it potentially takes some wheat back off the export market to be used domestically for bioethanol production. But if anyone can sort it Aky can.
I say, I say, I say. What do you call an Egyptian who doesn't take back-handers? Asif. That's a cracker that one. I can't believe that I haven't been snapped up for a summer season at Cleethopes yet, I really can't.
Kazakhstan To Increase Grain Area In 2010
New kid on the block, Kazakhstan, is set to increase it's grain planted area by around 4.5% to 16.7 million hectares for the 2010/11 season, according to UkrAgroConsult.
The Kazakhs have been quick to latch onto this "you grow wheat and people give you money for it, brilliant" malarkey recently, and are busy forging export relationships with anybody with a cheque book.
Wheat dominates the scene in Kazakhstan at the moment, although they are also looking to develop other crops, having recently noticed that their new bezzie chums China import quite a lot of soybeans from time to time.
Wheat area is seen rising almost 3% to 14.3 million hectares from 13.9 million in 2009.
Kazakhstan Continues To Flex It's Muscles
Newly promoted into the global grain export Premier League, Kazakhstan has one major problem, it is land-locked. The Black Sea is around 1,500 kilometres away.
So what do you do when you have a record 20 MMT grain crop and no ports to ship it from?
That's right, you buy one.
Plans are afoot to buy a port on the Black Sea from new mates Georgia. The latter has already offered to let Kazakhstan use it's rail network to help get it's wheat to hungry buyers like Egypt.
The ambitious Kazakhs are already in talks with China to build a grain terminal on it's border with China to open up access to the Far East and South East Asia.
Now they are looking at the Georgian port of Poti to open up a gateway into North Africa and Europe.
A deal was recently done to supply Egypt with 1.5 MMT of it's wheat requirements in 2010, and Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev says his country has the capability to double agricultural output by 2014 by embracing new equipment and technology.
Labour is one area where the country has big advantages over the west, the average salary in the agricultural sector in Kazakhstan is around just GBP1,500 per annum.
Still, the women aren't much to look at. Imagine Arthur Mullard in a dress with some lipstick on. That's Miss Kazakhstan that is.
New Kid On The Block
Kazakhstan is flexing it's muscles on the international export arena following a record grain harvest in 2009.
The former Soviet state produced a grain harvest of around 23 MMT in bunker weight in 2009/10 (20.8 MMT in clean weight), that's a 35% increase on the previous season, leaving them the potential to export around 10 million tonnes this marketing year.
According to the Kazakh Agency of Statistics grain stocks in the country as at Jan 1st 2010 were 16.45 MMT, an increase of 54.3% compared to 2009. The vast majority of that was wheat at 14.49 MMT, up 58.2%.
The head of the national grain company KazAgro has just announced a 1.5 MMT export deal with the world's largest wheat buyer, Egypt. He also says that the country will be casting it's export net east to China and the countries of South-East Asia, with plans afoot to also expand soybean production too in the region.
Kazakhstan and China also plan to launch grain terminal at their border, to help aid grain exports to the East.
Having already teamed up with Russia and Belarus in an attempt to fast-track accession into the WTO, Kazakhstan is also keen to form a Black Sea grain pool with Russia and Ukraine that would give it more direct access to some of its neighbours export facilities.
Kazakhstan Set To Double Grain Production And Exports
In the near future Kazakhstan will be able to double grain production and export volumes via the introduction of new modern technical equipment in the agricultural industry, declared Akulbek Kurishbaev, the Minister of Agriculture, during the first international agrarian investment forum "Agroinvest.KZ-2008."
According to the Minister, the average annual grain production in Kazakhstan currently totals around 15.5 mln tonnes, and grain exports total 6 mln tonnes.
Currently the country ranks around 7th-8th in the leading world grain exporters. In 2007 Kazakhstan was the world's largest flour exporting nation, he said.
Kazakhstan can increase it's grain production volumes and reach these targets - without even increasing area - by embracing modern agricultural methods, said the Minister.
Kazakh Wheat Quality Very High In 2008
As of October 7, Kazakhstan had harvested 17.2 mln tonnes of grain in bunker weight from 99.3% of planted areas, declared Akulbek Kurishbaev, the Minister of Agriculture.
According to the Minister, high-quality wheat (1-, 2- and 3- grades) totals 91% of harvested crop as opposed to 75% in the previous years.
In contrast Russia and Ukraine harvested large wheat crops, but with a 1-, 2-, 3- grade share of just 15% and 11%, respectively.
Kazakhstan finishes grain planting, expects harvest to total 16-17 mln tonnes
(Interfax) -- Kazakh agricultural enterprises have fully completed spring planting work, the Kazakh Agriculture Ministry's press service said.
"According to tentative regional data, planting work has been completed today and the [planting] rates were 1%-2% higher than last year's," the ministry said.
Spring grain has been planted on 15.6 million hectares, including wheat on 13.1 million hectares, barley on 2 million hectares, grain maize on 90,000 hectares and rice on 74,000 hectares.
Oil crops have been planted on 851,000 hectares, including sunflowers on 528,000 hectares, soy on 50,000 hectares and rapeseed on 181,000 hectares. In addition, the country has planted sugar beets on 19,000 hectares and cotton on 165,000 hectares.
The planting area in 2008 is to total 19.9 million hectares, including grain on 16.2 million hectares of which wheat will be planted on 13.6 million hectares.
