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Abstract
Agriculture plays an important role for Kazakhstan not only because of rural employment, but also
because of the diversity it brings to its oil dependent economy. A considerable increase in grain
exports was achieved during the recent years, however, there still is a large room for in-creasing
productivity and efficiency to boost the agricultural potential of the country further. The government
of Kazakhstan has introduced several policy packages in the past to boost productivity
and efficiency, however, the impact of these reforms has not been yet analyzed quantitatively.
Micro level data collected from 200 farms in northern Kazakhstan in 2015 is used in the analysis, in
order to fill this research gap. A mixture of evidences is found in terms of policy effect on
productivity and efficiency. The results of the analysis showed that direct subsidy access reduced
the efficiency, while access to supply chain infrastructure had the opposite effect and increased
the efficiency. Therefore, the study concludes that the government should divert its policy
support from direct subsidy payments to the improvement of agricultural infrastructure. This will
influence positively not only productivity and efficiency, but also Kazakhstan’s commitments
towards international and regional trade agreements.