This year's sugar beet harvest in Kyrgyzstan, according to preliminary data, will be 900 thousand tons, which is 1.5 times more than last year. Such a yield is also due to the fact that farmers of the country have made significant efforts to increase the sown areas of sugar beet.

Thus, according to representatives of the agro-industrial cluster “Sugar”, in 2024 the farmers of the republic managed to increase the sown areas of sugar beet to the level of 2019, that is, up to 15 thousand hectares.

However, in order to maintain this success and ensure long-term sustainability, it is important to take measures to protect the domestic market. Limiting sugar imports could be one such measure. This will not only help to preserve the accumulated sown areas, but also give domestic farmers an incentive to continue growing sugar beet, believes Ruslan Rafibekov, a member of the Board of Directors and head of the raw materials department of Kaindy-Kant OJSC.

According to him, the increase in sugar beet acreage is directly related to the growth of raw materials for white sugar production, which, in turn, strengthens Kyrgyzstan's food security. However, if cheap imported sugar is brought into the country, the price in the domestic market may fall and farmers will lose income, which may force them to abandon sugar beet cultivation next year.

The example of 2019 shows how dangerous this is. At that time, the overproduction of sugar in the states of the Eurasian Economic Union led to a sharp drop in prices, which caused the reduction of sown areas in our country almost twice. It took five years to restore these areas.

“This season we have enough of our own sugar to meet the needs of the KR. If we want to maintain food security, it is necessary to do everything possible to prevent imported sugar from entering the country. If such restrictions are not introduced in time, it will hit our farmers hard,” Ruslan Rafibekov noted.