Grain contention or Wheat production in Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan is one of the important wheat producing and exporting countries, which has experienced transition from state regulated command economy to free market capitalism. Given increased demand for wheat from the global market and its strategic nature to domestic food security, high volatility of outputs and diverging trends in production have raised concerns about the performance of the Kazakh wheat sector. This research paper looks at the drivers of wheat production and the role of the state in it. Considering how different state approaches to the economic development may affect agricultural output helps discovering that state involvement is crucial to enhancement of wheat output growth. Relevance to Development Studies There are a large number of scholarly written papers on agriculture of transitioning economies and several academic articles on Kazakhstan specifically exploring the reasons and the causes of Kazakh grain sector dynamics. However the bulk of the research in this area focuses on the period prior to 2000. Therefore this study seeks to contribute to the academic literature by providing an analysis of the performance of wheat production and factors affecting its total output growth after this period.