During the Soviet era, Kazakhstan was one of the USSR’s largest sheep-farming republics. By the end of 1975, the country had 34.6 million sheep and goats — the second-highest figure after the Russian Soviet Republic. At one point in the 1970s, Soviet planners even considered raising the herd to 50 million.
Today, the picture looks very different. As of March 2026, Kazakhstan’s sheep population stands at 23.17 million heads — nearly one-third below the 1975 level.
Lamb is increasingly becoming one of the clearest indicators of the state of Kazakhstan’s agricultural economy. It reflects inflation, export demand, feed costs and the purchasing power of households all at once. According to the Bureau of National Statistics, lamb prices in Kazakhstan rose by 29% in 2025 alone.
Official data show that a ton of lamb now costs 1.3 million tenge, compared with just 88,300 tenge in 2001. In other words, prices have increased more than fourteenfold over the past 25 years.
Meanwhile, the average price of a live sheep at domestic markets reached 86,300 tenge in March 2026. The highest prices were recorded in the Zhambyl region at more than 112,000 tenge per head, while prices in West Kazakhstan region were closer to 63,500 tenge.
At the same time, sheep farming remains an expensive business with a long payback period. Industry estimates suggest that maintaining one sheep costs around 9,000 tenge per month, or more than 100,000 tenge per year. A farm with 400 heads may take over three years to break even. Rising feed prices, fuel costs and logistics expenses are making the domestic market increasingly vulnerable to any increase in external demand.
And external demand is growing. Kazakhstan has been steadily expanding lamb exports to the United Arab Emirates. Around seven tons of chilled lamb are shipped to the UAE every week, with volumes expected to rise to ten tons weekly in the near future.
At first glance, exports appear highly attractive. Gulf countries import up to 85-90% of their food, while demand for halal meat products continues to grow steadily. In 2025, Kazakhstan’s exports to the UAE totaled $132.9 million, with lamb accounting for roughly 55% of all food exports. But this raises a key question: why is Kazakhstan exporting lamb to the UAE at prices below its own domestic market?
In the UAE, the average sheep currently sells for around 860 dirhams, or roughly 110,000 tenge, while lamb retails at approximately 30 dirhams per kilogram — about 3,800 tenge. That is noticeably different from Kazakhstan, where prices are around 4,500 tenge per kilogram.
In my view, there are several reasons why lamb prices remain elevated inside Kazakhstan:
- First, exports are typically conducted through wholesale shipments under long-term contracts, where prices are naturally lower than retail market prices.
- Second, Kazakh producers are often forced to discount aggressively in order to secure market share and compete with suppliers from Australia, India and Pakistan.
- Third, Kazakhstan’s domestic market remains heavily dependent on intermediaries and seasonal demand spikes, particularly during religious holidays, when some traders sharply increase prices.
Policy recommendations:
First, Kazakhstan should introduce export quotas or temporary export restrictions during periods of sharp seasonal price increases, particularly one to two months before Eid al-Adha, in order to prevent domestic shortages.
Second, the government should support the creation of regional feedlots and slaughtering centers through co-financing programs. This would allow farmers to sell processed products directly, reducing dependence on intermediaries.
Third, feed purchases should be subsidized during drought periods, alongside the creation of a state feed reserve. Feed inflation remains one of the main drivers of lamb prices.
Fourth, Kazakhstan needs preferential loans with maturities of at least three years specifically designed for sheep farms. Standard commercial lending terms are often incompatible with the economics of livestock farming.
Fifth, the country should expand livestock insurance programs covering disease outbreaks, animal losses and climate-related risks, especially for smaller farms.
Sixth, a nationwide digital price-monitoring system for livestock and lamb markets should be introduced to reduce price manipulation during periods of heightened demand.
Finally, Kazakhstan should move beyond exporting raw meat and focus on developing domestic halal food production — including chilled meat, processed products and canned goods. The real value in agricultural exports increasingly lies not in raw commodities, but in value-added processing.
Yerlan Karimov, independent expert, specifically for www.economyKZ.org
