Despite claims of a record potato harvest in 2024, retail prices have risen by almost 60%. The Supreme Audit Chamber (SAC) has cast doubt on the reliability of the data, pointing to potentially fictitious statistics and weak control over the spending of agricultural subsidies.
According to Ratel.kz, citing a government report on the execution of the republican budget, 2,634.6 thousand tonnes of potatoes were harvested in Kazakhstan in 2024, which is 28.7% more than the previous year. However, in January 2025, retail potato prices rose by 58.4%.
SAC auditors called this contradiction a "price paradox" and noted that, with an increase in supply, prices should stabilise and fall, not rise.
"The observed price paradox serves as an important signal, pointing to potential problems either in the system for collecting and processing statistical information, or in the real functioning of the food market, where production growth does not translate into price stability for the consumer," concluded the SAC.
According to the agency, such discrepancies cast doubt on both the quality of official reporting and the sustainability of economic growth in the agro-industrial sector.
Meanwhile, the head of the SAC, Alikhan Smailov, previously reported that around 2 trillion tenge had been allocated for subsidising agricultural producers over the last 5 years, yet the sector's contribution to GDP growth remains insignificant.
According to his data, it became known last year that:
- 5 billion tenge in subsidies were paid to 2,500 farms that ceased operations before or shortly after receiving the funds;
- 3,000 subsidy recipients, receiving a total of 5.4 billion tenge, had never been engaged in agriculture;
- "egregious cases of data distortion" were recorded, including the subsidisation of cattle with a birth date of 6 March 1914, i.e., a 108-year-old cow.
Recall that in January, Vice-Minister of Agriculture Yerbol Taszhurekov guaranteed stable prices for potatoes and vegetables. Despite this, a sharp jump in potato prices began to be observed in the country's regions.