ABSTRACT
Agriculture in Kazakhstan and other Central Asian Republics is undergoing a transformation as the former Soviet Republics evolve from centrally planned economies with state owned farms into market-based economies with privately owned farms. The rainfed grain production region of northern Kazakhstan exemplifies a region in transition. These recently privatized farms tend to be large, heavily mechanized, and in comparison to similar size grain farms in the United States and Canada, they employ a large number of workers. But labor in Kazakhstan is relatively inexpensive and currently it is readily available. The equipment and cropping systems used on these farms are similar, which facilitates the development of standardized costs and returns estimates that can be used to analyze the economics of alternative cropping systems. However, the equipment on these farms, much of it dating back to Soviet times, is obsolete and badly deteriorated.
