Kazakhstan plans to reduce the planting acreage for wheat and rice crops and increase the growing-area for priority crops like corn and grain plus oil-bearing crops and forage crops.

According to Assylzhan Mamytbekov, Agriculture Minister, 13 million hectares (32.12 acres) of wheat will be sown, a reduction of 468 thousand hectares (1156.5 thousand acres). The rice-growing area is also to be reduced by 5.7 thousand hectares (14,000 acres) compared to 2012.

Meanwhile, the area for growing priority crops like corn and grain will be expanded by 5.6 thousand hectares (13.8 thousand acres) and areas under other priority crops will grow by 76.8 thousand hectares (189.7 thousand acres).

The area under oil-bearing crops will reach 1.9 million hectares (4.69 million acres), which is 43 thousand hectares (106.25 thousand acres) more than last year’s level. Forage crops are to be sown in an area of 3.1 million hectares (7.66 million acres), which is 265 thousand hectares (654,000 acres) more than in 2012.

The Agriculture Minister said, „According to the preliminary information of agricultural departments of Kazakhstan’s regions, the plan is to sow crops in 21.4 million hectares (52.88 million acres), which is almost the same level of 2012.”

Mr Mamytbekov continued, „I have to say that this information is very close to the actual numbers. This has been achieved over the past two years of continuous control, including with the use of the space monitoring. The areas for spring sowing are 18.6 million hectares (45.96 million acres), 15.9 million hectares (39.29 million acres) will be used for sowing grain crops, including 13 million hectares (32.12 million acres) for wheat.”