A distinctive feature of agriculture in Kazakhstan is the sources of production facility.

According to the classification of categories of farms, there are three groups of producers: agricultural enterprises, individual entrepreneurs and peasant or farming enterprises (IE, PE, FE) and households. An important role is played by the "segmentation" of the production force of the industry in Kazakhstan, where the households occupy as much as 2/3 of the gross output of livestock products.

Households or as it is commonly called "Private Farm Households" (PFH) – residents of rural areas who grow products on a land plot to meet their own needs. In most cases, this is the only source of income. The key role of a high share of PFH in livestock products becomes particularly strong in the production of milk.

As there is a growing focus on expanding the country's export potential, international standards of requirements for agricultural products even more point to the unpreparedness of the Kazakh market. A striking example is the technical regulation of the EEU "On the safety of milk and dairy products", adopted in 2013. However, Kazakhstan received a temporary delay to bring the standards to the required level due to the high share of agricultural producers in the production of raw milk - 73.5% of all products.

Despite the fact that the technical regulation was supposed to enter into force in January 2020, it was decided to postpone it until 2025.  This was facilitated by two important factors:

1. the Conditions in which private farm households collect and transport products do not meet the quality and safety standards. The problem is mostly related to the lack of awareness of farmers with full measures of compliance with all the processes of veterinary and health management control, from feeding cows to transporting raw milk to reception points.

2. The high dependence of the enterprises on private farm households. In the regions, the share of PFH in milk production varies from 55 to 96%. This specificity of agriculture limits the mobility of both producers and consumer enterprises in the source of the raw material base.

How the product discrepancy will impact on the development of agriculture?

1. Decrease of income of private farm households. Since enterprises will be forced to refuse farmers to accept milk that does not meet the requirements, the demand for products of private farm households will decrease.

2. Shortage of milk and dairy products. Processing enterprises, as the main consumers of PFH production, will not be able to ensure full capacity.

3. Reduce of export potential. Milk and dairy products are one of the key export products. The long delay of severe measures to implement the quality standards only worsens the significant decline in exports of domestic products to the EEU countries in recent years.

In other words, this situation is difficult to call a winning one. Taking into account the specifics of the production facility, the priority areas for further efforts to develop the industry should be the consolidation of agricultural producers (the creation of cooperatives) and the development of scientific and educational base for conducting research and training farmers in modern methods of obtaining quality products.