Kyrgyz farmers are not in time to sell the potato stocks due to the ban imposed by Kazakhstan

Almaty. May 6. Silkroadnews – Kyrgyz farmers do not have time to sell the potato stocks and incur losses due to the ban Kazakhstan introduced on imports of this product from Kyrgyzstan, KyrTAG reports.

“Indeed, from the legal point of view Kazakhstan is right. The only problem is that many farmers relied on spring higher prices for potatoes, thus, prepared the stocks, now it will be impossible to sell the stocks, as the ban remains in force until the new potatoes crop. And the supply we have now for the domestic market is huge. It is not possible to transport it to Russia due to high transportation costs, Belarus has their own potatoes. Thus, it will be our farmers who incur the losses. They will lose the operating capital to purchase the seeds, fuel, etc.,” said the head of the Association of markets, trade and services sectors of Kyrgyzstan Sergey Ponomarev on Friday.
According to him, it is the Ministry of agriculture and water resources of the Kyrgyz Republic that shall bear responsibility for this situation.

“There is no doubt it is the responsibility of the Ministry of agriculture and water resources. When Kazakhstani party makes a complaint and asked to respond in writing, and our ministry keeps silent - it is definitely their fault, and the prime minister shall punish the representatives of the Ministry, head or deputies. It is not right to act like they do, it is simply a negligence of duty,” he said.

KazTAG reported earlier that on May 4, 2016, Kazakhstan introduced a temporary ban on the import of potatoes from Kyrgyzstan.

The ministry of agriculture explained that the cases became more frequent recently when the potatoes imported from Kyrgyzstan turned to be infected with quarantine objects – golden nematode Globodera rostochiensis (Wollenweber) Behrens. In particular, 79 cases of such infections have been revealed since January 2016, thus, the import of infected potatoes has been prevented and more than 1 thousand tonnes of infected products were returned to Kyrgyzstan.