The FBRC editorial team has learned that the State Inspection Committee for the Agro-Industrial Complex (AIC) was planning a revolution — a “single supplier” system, where the contractor would be responsible for the entire control cycle for locusts. The industry public did not even know about the project, and no one was informed about its so-called failure by mid-2025. The reason for the failure is simple: the treatment operators received pesticides of such poor quality from the main market companies that no one wanted to take responsibility for the result.
According to information received by the FBRC editorial team from an industry source, field treatment operators received pesticides of such dubious quality that the ‘single supplier’ system became simply impossible — no one wanted to take responsibility for the result when working with ineffective chemicals.
Particularly telling, according to the source, were supplies from companies already familiar to our readers, led by Toregeldy Kalmuratov — namely LLP «Satti Tulik» and LLP «Pesticides», which the FBRC editorial team wrote about in previous articles. It is reported that they were joined by LLP «AgroKhimServis» from Kostanay — a company which, over nine and a half years of operation, paid over 118 million tenge in taxes, with tax deductions in 2023 increasing almost twofold compared to the previous year.
The registrant of many locust control preparations is LLP «Agro-Khim-Lider», whose founders include Beishe Namashamov, already known to us from LLP «Pesticides». Judging by court documents, there were serious business relationships between these companies: in 2017-2019, LLP «Pesticides» supplied chemical plant protection products worth over 23 million tenge to LLP «Agro-Khim-Lider», which led to a court dispute over debt recovery totalling over 56 million tenge. The conflict ended with a settlement agreement in April 2019. This seemingly minor story once again shows that key market players are not only linked by common founders — they actively trade with each other, forming a closed supply ecosystem. The company «Agro-Khim-Lider» itself, according to data from the kompra.kz service, shows an impressive dynamic in tax payments: from 12.5 million tenge in 2022 to 199 million tenge in 2025 — an increase of more than 15 times over three years.
Incidentally, LLP «Agro-Khim-Lider» has only one direct government contract, but actively cooperates with official suppliers. A similar situation exists with another key market player — LLP «AgroKhimServis 2016», whose formal director is Kumar Askarov (although on social media he lists himself as deputy director). The company has no direct government contracts, but is a registrant of preparations and a key partner for other participants in the system.
But that is not all. According to the source, high-ranking officials from the Ministry of Agriculture play a key role in the distribution of orders. One well-known figure, who not so long ago settled in the high corridors of the Ministry building, allegedly gave instructions to purchase insecticides from a certain circle of companies specialising in the sale of pesticides. And his colleague, presumably, supported the promotion of LLP «AgroKhimServis», which, it is claimed, turned from an unknown market firm into a recipient of contracts worth hundreds of millions of tenge.
The technical side of the problem proved no less telling. According to the source, current laboratories can only determine the content of the active substance in preparations, but the effectiveness of a pesticide largely depends on additional components — adhesives, adjuvants, pH regulators of the solution. It is noted that unscrupulous suppliers have learned to exploit this: they purchase preparations without the necessary additives, which significantly cheapens the product but makes it practically useless in the field.
The attempt to solve this problem, it seems, has fundamentally failed. The source reports that the former committee chairman allegedly even lost his position after trying to purchase a modern laboratory capable of determining all components of pesticides. Apparently, full transparency of the composition of preparations did not suit all market participants.
Where does this leave us? If the source is to be believed, the state is trying to reform the locust control system by introducing reasonable principles of contractor responsibility for results, but these attempts are being dashed against the quality of the preparations supplied by interconnected companies. The ‘single supplier’ system might be able to improve efficiency and transparency, but only on the condition of using high-quality preparations and fair competition.
So if the quality of pesticides has such a critical impact on the result, why does the state continue to purchase preparations from suppliers with a dubious reputation? Why do attempts to introduce modern quality control methods meet such resistance? And most importantly — how many more billions of tenge will be spent on locust control, which, quite possibly, thrives thanks to ineffective preparations?
Say what you will, the locust control market has turned into a veritable dark forest of interconnected structures. And the position of the Ministry of Agriculture seems perfectly clear: why bother untangling the intricacies of business schemes when you can simply continue spending billions on locust control, which, thanks to ineffective preparations, feels right at home in Kazakhstan’s fields? After all, the main thing is to trust the official sources.