Kyrgyzstan inks deal to import first broiler parents

With its latest investment, Kyrgyz Broiler said it planned to continue its domestic growth. In recent years, the government has supported Kyrgyz Broiler in becoming Kyrgyzstan’s first commercial company to start producing local chicken meat and is encouraging the company to expand.

Based in Kyrgyzstan’s capital city of Bishkek, Kyrgyz Broiler supplies fresh chicken meat, whole chickens, and chicken parts such as breasts and wings to the market, the company added.

Kyrgyzstan has a way to go to become self-sufficient

Currently, Kyrgyzstan is only about 15-20% self-sufficient in poultry meat production, with the rest of the chicken meat being imported from other post-Soviet countries, primarily Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

In 2021, Kyrgyzstan produced 564,200 eggs, while domestic demand is estimated at 1.2 million, the Agricultural Ministry estimated. The overall demand for meat and poultry stood at 408,900 tonnes last year, against domestic production of 278,800 tonnes.

Over the past few decades, Kyrgyz farmers have primarily focused on breeding lamb and beef. Rustam Osmonaliev, head of the Kyrgyz poultry union, said that Kyrgyzstan had one of the weakest poultry industries among all post-Soviet republics.

One of the main problems of the poultry industry development was the massive import of poultry products from other countries, including Russia, Osmonaliev said.

“This is a tremendous opportunity to expand and bring quality broiler meat to a new and growing market. We’re happy to be doing business with Kyrgyz Broiler, and we’re committed to providing quality products across the globe,” said Abdullah Vahab, business manager for Cobb Europe.

Expanding poultry production

However, in the past few years, the Kyrgyz government has put some effort into expanding poultry production. In 2019, the authorities allocated a record-breaking US$13 million to revive an old Soviet poultry farm in the city of Balykchy in the Issyk-Kul region. The farm began operation in 2021 and plans to double production in 2022 to 7,500 tonnes, deputy general director of the farm Murat Ozbekov said, estimating that this would be enough to boost Kyrgyz self-sufficiency in broiler meat to 30%.