On November 1^st 2019, the new bilateral cooperation project “Strengthening of dairy farming competences for the sustainable development of milk production in Kazakhstan” has started. The cooperation project between Germany and Kazakhstan is funded on the German side by the Federal German Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). The project has a duration of initially 3 years. The kick-off meeting took place on November 5^th 2019 in Nur-Sultan, capital city of Kazakhstan.

The consortium, comprising of ADT Project Consulting GmbH (lead partner) and it´s partner IAK Agrar Consulting GmbH was commissioned to carry out the project on behalf of BMEL.

On the Kazakh side, key partners are the Department of Production and Processing Livestock products of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan as political partner and the Research and Innovation Center of Animal Husbandry in Nur-Sultan as well as the Agrarian Credit Corporation (ACC) as institutional key partners.

The aim of the project is to support the Kazakh government in the expansion of milk production with specific emphasis on modern, sustainable, competitive and animal welfare oriented production systems.

Kickoff Meeting in Nur-Sultan

In the first months of project implementation, up to 15 dairy cattle farms will be selected in cooperation with the Kazakh project partners in the northern regions of Kazakhstan as pilot farms. The main focus is on small and medium-sized commercial oriented dairy farms which are looking to invest into their business and to improve their dairy farm management. The target group for pilot farms extends to newcomers in small and medium-sized commercial dairy farming. The pilot farms will be intensively consulted and supported to strengthen production processes, production standards and finally the output of high quality milk. Furthermore, the training of staff of the pilot farms will be a crucial project activity to improve the competitiveness and support capacity building in the Kazakh dairy sector.

The experience gained from the intensive consultation and capacity building activities with the selected pilot farms and the associated optimization of the production systems will be continuously used to strengthen the advisory skills and competences of the institutional project partner organizations in Kazakhstan as well as to facilitate the investments in the sector for an integrated, sustainable, competitive development of the dairy farming sector in Kazakhstan. Thereby the project will support the successful implementation of the long-term sectoral program for the development of dairy farming for 2018-2027 of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Kazakhstan.