Kazakhstan Government is forecasting a good harvest in 2011

Government of Kazakhstan is forecasting a good harvest in 2011, Tengrinews.kz reports. Prime-Minister Karim Massimov says that the country’s readiness for sowing is high. “The extent of readiness for spring agricultural operation is high, the weather is favorable: the harvest should be good,” Prime-Minister said at a government meeting. Karim Massimov pointed out that this year the interest rate on loans to farmers has been lowered to make funding more accessible. This year’s rate is set to 8% while last year it made 12%. “Cheapening of funds for farmers should in the end result in cheapening of food products. We should see the effect. When food starts to be sold [at inflated prices] everyone say: “Don’t interfere, this is market.” But when it comes to government subsidies, everyone is asking for subsidies,” Karim Massimov said. Minister of Agriculture Akylbek Kurishbayev announced meteorological forecasts for the spring-summer sowing campaign period: “From the level of actual spring reserves of moisture in the topsoil and the amount of winter snowfall we expect that soil moisture reserves in most of grain-yielding regions of the country are going to be long-time annual average.”