Agriculture Ministry criticized regions for missing deadlines on veterinary infrastructure

But already at the start of the program, Minister of Agriculture Aidarbek Saparov publicly criticized several regions for falling behind schedule, reports Inbusiness.kz.

The gist in brief

• In 2026–2027, Kazakhstan plans to create 2,399 veterinary infrastructure facilities — almost four times more than were built over the previous two years (626 facilities worth 10.6 billion tenge); Minister Saparov stated that despite significant state funding, on-the-ground work is being carried out insufficiently actively.
• Construction of veterinary stations is lagging in eight regions, and burial sites for animal carcasses in five; 66.2 billion tenge is allocated for infrastructure in 2026–2027 under the broader Comprehensive Veterinary Development Plan worth 144.9 billion tenge until 2030.
• In parallel, the authorities are accelerating digitalization: registration of livestock owners in the Tort Tulik application and the creation of a meat traceability system "from farm to table," to which 15,754 catering facilities have already been connected.
• Kazakhstan has confirmed international veterinary statuses of the World Organisation for Animal Health for foot-and-mouth disease, African horse sickness, classical and African swine fever, and avian influenza — the export potential of meat products directly depends on this.

Program scale and who is falling behind

The Ministry of Agriculture recorded the lowest rates of veterinary station construction in Kostanay, Akmola, Karaganda, Atyrau, Almaty and Pavlodar regions, as well as in the Abai and Zhetisu regions. A separate problem is burial sites for animal carcasses — critically important facilities for the safe disposal of biological waste and preventing the spread of infections: lagging in this area has been noted in Kostanay, Akmola, Kyzylorda, Pavlodar and Turkestan regions. Saparov demanded that akimats speed up the work, specifically pointing out the problems slowing construction even before contractors arrive — allocation of land plots and connection of engineering utilities.

Against this backdrop, the Ulytau region stands out, being the first in the country to fully complete the 2026 plan — 22 modular facilities worth 570 million tenge, with the region's total need of 53 facilities over two years.

Digital livestock accounting

The second major area of the reform is moving livestock owners to the Tort Tulik mobile application, where farmers can view registered livestock, register offspring, obtain a veterinary passport and replace identification tags. Insufficient registration levels are currently recorded in Mangistau, Karaganda, East Kazakhstan, Aktobe, Pavlodar and North Kazakhstan regions. For the state, the point of this digitalization is not only farmer convenience — the more accurate the data on actual livestock numbers and their movement, the easier it is to plan vaccination, detect disease outbreaks and trace the origin of products.

Meat "from farm to table"

An even more ambitious task is full digital traceability of meat and other animal-origin products. Since April 2025, the "Veterinary and sanitary examination" module has been operating, combining data from the animal and its slaughter site to specific catering organizations; 15,754 facilities have already been connected to the system in pilot mode, including schools, kindergartens and hospitals, and regions are to complete connection by October 1, 2026. The next step is labeling carcasses with barcodes, which will link a specific batch of products to data on the animal's origin and examination results, allowing the entire path of meat to be traced in reverse if necessary — from the counter to the specific animal and slaughter enterprise.

Why veterinary status is an export issue

All this infrastructural and digital work is directly tied to international trade: the very possibility of exporting meat products depends on the country's confirmed veterinary status. Kazakhstan has already confirmed the statuses and self-declarations of the World Organisation for Animal Health for a number of particularly dangerous diseases — foot-and-mouth disease, African horse sickness, classical and African swine fever, and avian influenza. At the same time, the threat is not abstract: FAO records risks of the spread of a new serotype of foot-and-mouth disease SAT1 in Asia, and Kazakhstan finds itself at the center of an epizootic ring of neighboring countries where the virus has already been confirmed — meaning the country's confirmed status requires not a one-time effort but constant control of borders and livestock. Significantly, it is precisely this category of diseases that recently rattled the continent's neighbors — the outbreak of African swine fever in Italy this summer resulted in mass culling of livestock and trade restrictions for an entire region, clearly demonstrating the price of losing such status. The Ministry of Agriculture expects to further integrate national veterinary information systems with the digital platforms of the EAEU and other trading partners — meaning errors in animal identification or the inability to confirm the origin of meat risk becoming not only a domestic problem but also an obstacle to exports.

Author's conclusion

The gap between the scale of funding (66.2 billion tenge for 2026–2027 alone) and the actual pace of construction in lagging regions shows a problem typical of large infrastructure programs — money has been allocated, but on-the-ground implementation runs into far more mundane issues such as land plot allocation and utility connections. The Ulytau example proves that with proper organization the plan is quite achievable on time, which means Saparov's public criticism of lagging regions is not so much a complaint about a lack of resources as a signal that the problem is managerial, not financial.