Page 95 - Hereford Magazine 2021

Kazakhstan Herefords

on the world stage

Dauren looking at bulls at Earnscleugh Station.

azakhstan Hereford Association (KHA) director Denmark, Belarus, Estonia, and Germany.
Dauren Matakbayev is thirsty for knowledge, and Accuracy is an issue.
he’s drinking from the fountain that is the world “We need to collect the right data, something faced by
Hereford family. modern Hereford countries 20, 30, or even 40 years ago. Our
K Attending conferences is one way to gather a farmers don’t really understand why it is so important to put
lot of information in a short space of time: Dauren’s boss, KHA correct data in the system because they not familiar with the
chairman Bakyt Ataibekov, who owns Dinara-Ranch, the biggest EPD valuation system we are trying to establish.”
Hereford herd in Kazakhstan, went to the World Hereford Dauren has a business background with no farming history,
Conference in Canada in 2012. Dauren went to Uruguay in 2016 although he has done a master’s degree in agriculture
and attended the WHC in New Zealand in 2020. livestock and is now doing a PhD.
Pulling a business card from his pocket, Dauren says they’re “This role is about managing a business; it’s not about cattle.
great networking opportunities. They need to organise their members and their paperwork. As
“For example, the Kazakhstan government is giving free we started importing cattle to Kazakhstan there was a lot of
ID ear tags for all cattle but they’re not good quality. We’re paperwork that had almost nothing to do with farming.”
encouraging farmers to buy better quality RFID tags, like It was about a year before he managed to find time to visit
the Allflex tags in New Zealand. This conference is great for farms.
meeting contacts for business reasons; trying to get our “It was surprising, most of them are not true farmers, they are
farmers the best equipment I can at a reasonable price.” people who invested their money in something new, something
The Kazakhstan Hereford Association was established in that has become popular in Kazakhstan, so most of them didn’t
2010 and became part of the world organisation in 2012. Its know much about the cattle business, just like me.”
main activities are cattle registration, certificate issues, cattle One of the main differences in the meat industry in
shows, seminars and training, and consultancy, as well as Kazakhstan is the vertical supply chain.
establishing a Hereford certified beef programme and a Youth “In Kazakhstan, people who have money do everything,
Hereford Association. from breeding to feedlot to slaughter to processing to
As at March 2020, the time of the conference, the association branding and marketing. We have several vertical companies
had registered 67,089 head of cattle (18,778 bulls, 8243 cows that can do everything from grass to the plate. Sometimes
and 40,068 heifers). Their main imports are from closest that’s good and sometimes it’s not, as there can be conflicts
neighbour Russia, with other large numbers from Australia, of interest between those stages due to subsidies, and those
USA and Canada, and smaller numbers from Ireland, conflicts aren’t helping the way they should be. We don’t

Year 2021 HEREFORD MAGAZINE 93
World Hereford
Conference 2020
Queenstown NZ