Kazakhstan’s dominant position in Central Asia’s wheat and flour market is coming under pressure as Russia, unable to ship large quantities via the Black Sea due to Ukraine’s drone prowess, is dumping its crop at prices that Astana can’t compete with.

Kazakhstan, one of the world’s leading wheat exporters, has recorded bumper wheat harvests over the past two marketing years, which run from July through the following June. “Favorable weather, including abundant precipitation, during the spring and summer months in 2024 and 2025, boosted yields and ensured optimal returns,” according to a US Department of Agriculture (USDA) analysis. 

The USDA recently downwardly revised its forecast for the 2026-27 marketing year, predicting Kazakhstan will export 9.5mn tonnes of wheat out of an overall harvest of about 15mn tonnes.

Kazakh officials reported on September 9 that so far in the season, Kazakh farmers had threshed 13.5mn tonnes of grain, including wheat, with almost 40% of the land under cultivation remaining to be harvested.

To protect domestic grain producers and processors, the Kazakh Ministry of Agriculture imposed a ban on Russian grain imports in July, seemingly contradicting the spirit of the Eurasian Economic Union’s (EEU’s) intent to enable free trade among member states, which include Russia and Kazakhstan.

The ban, it seems, is coming back to bite the Kazakh agricultural sector. Protectionism has helped fuel high export prices for Kazakh wheat, according to an analysis published by the Karavan news outlet. As a result, Russian wheat is rapidly making inroads in Kazakhstan’s backyard, especially in terms of exports to Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous state, and Afghanistan.

Russian wheat is undercutting the Kazakh competition even with the higher costs involved in transporting grain, which, ironically, must transit Kazakhstan to reach other Central Asian markets.

The Karavan analysis suggests that Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Agriculture caused a self-inflicted wound on the country’s wheat export markets with the ban on Russian grain. “This fall, we could face a new wave of bankruptcies, plant closures, and layoffs, all due to our Ministry of Agriculture's decision to create a monopoly,” it stated.

“We just watch these [Russian] trains pass by,” Karavan quoted Oleg Kurtvapov, director of the Best-Kustanay LLC grain processor, as saying. “If the Russians succeed in squeezing us out of these markets, it will be practically impossible for us to return."

Adding to the pressure on Kazakh producers and processors, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan are taking steps to improve their own processing capabilities with the aim of becoming exporters of flour.

This article first appeared on Eurasianet here.