ASTANA: Kazakhstan cut its 2012 grain crop forecast to 12.8 million tonnes on Monday, approaching a post-Soviet record low, as drought persists across parts of the Central Asian country.
The Agriculture Ministry forecast average crop yields of less than 1 tonne per hectare as hot and dry weather damages crops across parts of its northern grain belt. The ministry had previously forecast a grain crop of 14 million tonnes this year.
The latest forecast, published on the presidential website www.akorda.kz and confirmed by a ministry spokesman, is less than half of the record 27 million tonnes harvested last year and undershoots a nine-year average of 17 million tonnes.
Kazakhstan's 16.7 million people consume about 2.5 million tonnes of grain per year. Domestic supplies are not endangered by the drought, although the country will have to dig into its reserves to maintain its role as a top-10 world wheat exporter.
"Last year we harvested a record crop, but this year won't be an easy one for agriculture," Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev was quoted as saying on the site. "It's important to control grain prices on the domestic market."
The worst US drought in more than half a century has sent world grain prices to record highs in the last week. Weather forecasts show little to no relief, feeding global worries about food inflation.
Persistently hot and dry weather in southern Europe has also hit grain yields in countries such as Ukraine, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, the European Commission's crop monitoring unit said on Monday.
In two decades of independence from the Soviet Union, the previous lowest grain crop in Kazakhstan was the 12.2 million tonnes harvested in 2010.
The vast steppe country has sown 16.2 million hectares to grain this year, an area about the size of Tunisia. Three northern provinces - Akmola, Kostanai and North Kazakhstan - account for around three quarters of the sown area.
Nazarbayev said the government would offer assistance to farmers in the regions worst affected by drought, which include parts of Akmola and Kostanai, as well as the Karaganda and Aktobe regions.
Agriculture Minister Asylzhan Mamytbekov, who met the president on Monday, said he still expected a good crop in North Kazakhstan province, as well as certain parts of Akmola, Karaganda and Kostanai.
Carryover stocks from last year's record-high crop should allow Kazakhstan to remain an important exporter in the current season.
The ministry's latest forecast for exports in the marketing year to June 30, 2013, is 10 million tonnes versus a record 12.1 million tonnes in the season ended June 30, 2012.
As of July 1, Kazakhstan's elevators held 8.2 million tonnes of grain, ministry data show.
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