This was stated by the head of NCE RK Timur Kulibayev at the interregional meeting on the development of the system of direct sales of agricultural products in Almaty

According to him, to solve the problem of import substitution, we must focus on direct marketing of products and proper storage.

Speaking at the meeting, the Chairman of the Presidium of the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs of Kazakhstan "Atameken" Timur Kulibayev primarily focused on the benefits of combining farmers in agricultural cooperatives.

"The proposal of the National Chamber of entrepreneurs - is to use the possibility of the law "On agricultural cooperation", which came into force on January 1, 2016, to help small-scale industries to unite in cooperatives. What caused a lot of questions from the owners of land plots, the farmers? They are afraid to return back to agricultural cooperatives, they thought land plots will be taken away from them, etc. Cooperatives can start their activities with marketing functions: transport, logistics, sales of products. In the future, agricultural cooperation can be built through the line of manufacturing: joint use of machinery, purchase of fertilizers, work with new varieties. That is the work that individual agricultural producers are not able to do. And the Ministry of Agriculture, and the National Chamber of Entrepreneurs will conduct explanatory work among the villagers for the use of such opportunities", - said Timur Kulibayev.

According to "Atameken", the potential production capacity of Kazakhstan in agriculture is huge, and it should be used.

"Goods consumed in the country equal 2.2 billion - are the products that we can produce ourselves, but import from abroad. Why is this happening? There are seasonal products, it is clear that the autumn harvest ripens and during this period we have low prices. And you need to eat all year round, and because we can’t normally store produce, process it, i.e. we import. Therefore, the emphasis should be on storage. That is why it is important to create a wholesale and logistics center, which should be built at the border to Almaty. On our part, in conjunction with the Fund "Baiterek" we created the Fund "Almex Baiterek", and are willing to participate in the work of the logistics center. Yes, there are a lot of private logistics warehouses and points, but we need to move to a new format that will solve the problem of import substitution. It should provide an opportunity for producers from the southern regions to bring their products to Almaty, it is a huge potential for our country. This is not a project. It is painstaking work that we do now".

The initiative of the National Chamber of entrepreneurs is supported by regional leaders. According to akim of Almaty Baurzhan Baibek, development of agricultural cooperation system will give impetus to the development of agriculture in general, and provide access to farmers, in particular, to financial resources and markets.

"Almaty - has 1 million 700 thousand people, according to the official statistics and plus 2 million 800 thousand people, including agglomeration... That is nearly 3 million people. To ensure the sustainable development of the city, it is necessary to study the issue of quality of food supply, it is very important for us. Almaty is not an agricultural region, but at the same time, the development of agribusiness and agro-processing is one of our absolute priorities, because the food industry is the fourth part of the entire manufacturing industry of the city. Last year, 203 enterprises of the city produced goods for 177.5 billion tenge. It is important for us to know the origin of the products, to move to a new format, it is important to establish further cooperation with the producers in the regions", - concluded Bauyrzhan Baibek.

Akim of Almaty region Amandyk Batalov spoke about the importance of food security.

"Today we can fully provide with meat, milk, fruit and vegetable products Almaty. Enbekshikazakh district produces a sufficient amount of potatoes, apples, animal products. Sirect sales of agricultural products were missing in the link between consumers and producers. This can be ensured through modern logistics centers that will directly provide goods storage and sales at large shopping centers, shops, supermarkets, restaurants. This link is not enough, and can only do business with the support of NPP of Kazakhstan "Atameken". On behalf of the President, we are working on the creation of food belt around Almaty, and the creation of agricultural cooperation will be the main tool in achieving this goal", - said Amandyk Batalov.

Also, he said, 137 agricultural cooperatives have been created over the past year and a half, which united 11 thousand agricultural enterprises. The agricultural cooperatives planted 4200 hectares of beet, 125 thousand tons of beet were produced in recent years. We launched a sugar factory for the first time. "Now we produce our own sugar, which we previously imported from abroad. This year we plan to plant 6400 hectares of land and to harvest 250 thousand tons of products. Through co-operatives, we plan to revive our famous apple orchards. We need to increase productivity, to restore irrigation networks. In this sense, Timur Askarovich promised to help us. Government promised us support. The biggest-longest irrigation networks are in Almaty region - 17 thousand km. There are no networks of the kind in any other region of Kazakhstan. Some of them are in the national, some - in a communal, and some - in private ownership. We conducted an inventory, certification of all ownerless networks, we will allocate funds from the local budget to restore them. In addition, the Islamic Development Bank promises to carry out a study of our networks, it will allocate 34 billion tenge. Due to this, the yield can be increased by 4-5 times compared with now", - said Amandyk Batalov.

Timur Kulibayev spoke about possible ways of solving the problem of water supply.

"We visit all the regions of the country. Water supply problem is acute in the south, and the west, and the center. So for many years, the system was not in order and requires financial investments. We, the National Chamber of entrepreneurs will go to the Government with a proposal to include issues of water supply in the program of infrastructure development "Nurly Zhol". This will be a huge help for our farmers and will increase the productivity of labor ", - concluded the Chairman of the Presidium of NCE RK " Atameken ".