Kazakhstan sets up Institute of Horse Breeding and Forage Production

Kazakhstan has established the Institute of Horse Breeding and Forage Production. Its founder is the National Agrarian Scientific and Educational Center, Kazinform News Agency learned from the Ministry of Agriculture.

The new institute was founded in line with the President’s instruction set to the Government at the November 15 Forum of Agricultural Workers held in Astana.

“The institute will carry out scientific and research works aimed at improvement of breeding abilities of horses, active development of horse-breeding, and promotion of domestic breeds to the foreign markets. The institute sets today an ambitious task to increase the number of thoroughbred horses by 6-7% in the nearest five years,” a statement from the ministry reads.

As the ministry explained, the expansion of breeding areas of local horse breeds, such as Kostanay and Adai, as well as highly productive Mugalzhar and Kushum genotypes and Kazakh horses of the Jabe type for meat and dairy production, becomes an important task for selection and breeding work.

The institute plans to create a data bank of various genetic groups of horses, an embryo and semen bank, to build a laboratory of immune genetics with artificial insemination station of the mares. The training of equine professionals will be organized as well. A specialized equine veterinary clinic will significantly improve the standard of veterinary care and will contribute to improving horses’ health and wellbeing.

According to the ministry, until 2035, researches in productive horse breeding will focus on increasing genetic potential of the horses of domestic population by the selection and technological methods and broad implementation into the commodity farms of Kazakhstan’s various regions. 

“All this will let ensure growth of productivity of breeds by 20-25%,” the ministry highlights.

“The integration with the foreign scientific and research centers, universities and world-class laboratories will become a key aspect of successful implementation of the plans set.

The implementation of joint scientific and technical programs and exchange of information will help introduce best practices into Kazakhstan’s horse breeding industry and make it more competitive at the international arena,” the ministry says.

Earlier, Kazinform reported that more than 700 million tenge of subsidies will be allocated for the development of domestic horse breeds.