Agricultural policy reforms and food security in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan

This paper provides an overview of agricultural policy reforms and their impact on food security in Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Owing to increasing hostility in regional trade among the countries of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, like their neighbors, have chosen to follow a path of food self-sufficiency, which has biased their agricultural systems towards grain production. The paper finds that the land reforms in these two countries, which have dismantled the state farms, have resulted in reduced productivity of crops and declining food availability at the household level. It argues that reversing this trend will require increased investment in rural infrastructure and agricultural research to improve crop yields, and in the short-term, food security interventions to protect the poor and vulnerable.