Irrigation system in Kazakhstan

Sergey Moon from the village of Zhanaturmys in Kazakhstan has been growing vegetables for over 25 years. He says it’s a difficult but honorable endeavor. So he gave up his job as an aircraft technician to grow tomatoes.

With “KH Kazakhstan-2030”, his idea became a farm that today covers 150 hectares of land on which three crops are grown: onions, corn and tomatoes.

“

I realized that farming is a very ‘pure’ profession. It is impossible to cheat for the sake of profit. Everything is as transparent as possible. You can touch, examine and taste the product. The quality cannot be faked. In addition, there is the constant stay in the fresh air, the gratitude of people who have a permanent job in the field. What could be better than agriculture?

“

Sergey Moon

To ensure that fresh vegetables get to the market counters, and then to the tables of households, work in “KH Kazakhstan-2030” is in full swing all year round. More than 100 people are employed as seasonal workers, whom Sergey hires in neighboring villages. In the fall, the soil is plowed here, in the winter the seeds are planted, in the spring the cuttings are planted in greenhouses, and in the summer they are taken from the greenhouses to the field. They are harvested only at the end of July – beginning of August.

Sergey Moon has been a loyal client of KMF LLC, the largest microfinance institution in Kazakhstan, for the past few years. In 2019, he bought a drip irrigation system with a loan. Part of the money also went to spring field work. The loan was taken out for three years, with an 11-month grace period. In the winter of the same year, with the help of the KMF, Sergey also paid off suppliers and replenished his working capital. In February 2020, Sergey was able to finance the expansion of the irrigation systems and the purchase of fertilizers, fuel and lubricants with another loan.

According to Sergey Moon, buying a drip irrigation system with the help of a KMF microcredit took his business to a new level. “It’s a huge saving in terms of resources. Above all, time. With the furrow method, it takes us nine hours to irrigate 10 hectares. With drip irrigation, it takes three hours. So we save water because we use it three times less. In addition, you can thus affecting the quality of the products.

Because we can apply any fertilizer directly to the root. And of course all this helps to save on labor costs and survive even the driest years,” says Sergey Moon. Sergey Moon’s farm sells vegetables in almost all regions of Kazakhstan, and also exports to Russia, Kyrgyzstan and other neighboring countries.