Farmers from the East Kazakhstan and Pavlodar regions have fully settled their accounts with the Food Corporation under forward grain purchase agreements made in early spring 2024, reports a correspondent from the Kapital.kz business information center, citing the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture.
This year, the grain operator allocated a total of 40.7 billion tenge for fieldwork financing. Of this amount, agricultural producers in the East Kazakhstan region received over 1 billion tenge, enabling them to contract the supply of more than 13 thousand tons of grain for the upcoming harvest. As of December 20, agricultural enterprises in the region fulfilled their obligations to the Food Corporation. Farmers in the Pavlodar region entered into contracts worth 687.1 million tenge. To date, farms have delivered 8.3 thousand tons of grain to the corporation's elevators, which is 100% of the forward contracts for 2024. Agricultural enterprises from the Kostanay region also ranked among the top three, having returned 137.1 thousand tons of agricultural products to the grain fund of the Food Corporation, valued at 10.7 billion tenge. This represents 96.4% of the contracted forward volumes for 2024.
The highest number of financing applications for forward purchases came from farmers in the main grain-producing regions: North Kazakhstan, Kostanay, and Akmolinsk. Farmers in North Kazakhstan contracted products worth 18.8 billion tenge, with a return of 14.8 billion tenge or 190.1 thousand tons under the 2024 forward contracts. Agricultural enterprises in Akmolinsk received over 9 billion tenge in state support. To date, they have delivered 87.9 thousand tons of grain to the Food Corporation's elevators, representing 78.4% of the contracted volume.
Under the terms of the forward contract, farmers are obligated to return the funds received after the harvest in the form of commercial grain. Since September, 502.4 thousand tons of new harvest grain have been received at the Food Corporation's elevators under forward contracts.
It is worth noting that the forward purchase program is implemented annually to support agricultural producers. In 2024, this program financed 324 agricultural enterprises. The Food Corporation purchases excess grain from small and medium-sized farms. Another program by the grain operator aims to assist small agricultural producers in exporting their crop products to foreign markets. Contracts worth 19.5 million dollars have been signed under the program for consolidating export batches of grain.
As of now, the Food Corporation's fund has received 729 thousand tons of grain from the 2024 harvest across all financing programs.