Yerkin Tatishev and KazBeef: Grain-Fed Angus on the Kazakh Steppe

Who is Yerkin Tatishev?

Yerkin Tatishev is the chairman of Kusto Group, a conglomerate whose business areas include agriculture, construction and materials, real estate and retail, oil and gas, Vietnam and logistics. KazBeef sits in its agriculture division alongside Kusto Agro and Kazseeds, according to the Kusto Group post on the Akmola plant.

Inside Climate News describes KazBeef as a division of the Singapore-based group. This profile covers only the company's public record and does not describe Tatishev's personal affairs.

How did KazBeef start?

According to Inside Climate News, KazBeef began as a joint venture between the Kazakh government and Bill Price's Global Beef Consultants. The government launched the effort about 25 years before the article, with an initial $50 million. In October 2010 the first Angus and Hereford cows were flown from Fargo, North Dakota, to Astana, in twelve flights carrying about 170 cows each.

The article says the descendants now number in the thousands but gives no total herd size. Kusto's own post describes 5,000 head of Angus and Hereford on 120,000 hectares in Akmola, and calls the company the first to grow grain-fed beef in northern Kazakhstan.

The cattle and the method

KazBeef crosses Angus or Hereford cattle with native steppe breeds, which tolerate harsh winters better. Calves are born in winter, grazed for four or five months and then sent to a feedlot, and cattle are typically slaughtered at about 20 months.

The cow-calf operation near Mamay controls nearly 250,000 acres and employs 80 people. The main feedlot lies near Malik Gabdullin, about 140 miles north of Astana, and the article also mentions a feedlot near Shchuchinsk.

The Akmola processing plant

Tatishev wrote in his own Kusto Group article that the new plant uses American technology obtained through partnerships with U.S. agricultural companies, and that beef is finished with a 180-day grain-fattening technique developed in the United States. He said storage capacity would rise to 6,000 tons of produce a year, and he called the plant the country's only producer of marbled beef free from hormones and antibiotics, a company claim.

Inside Climate News reports that the slaughterhouse, about an hour outside Shchuchinsk, slaughters about 35 cows a day and processes about 10 tons of highly marbled meat daily. It has the only computerized marbling grader in Kazakhstan, the article says.

Carbon credits and criticism

At COP28 in Dubai in December 2023, KazBeef announced plans with EcoBalance Global and rTek to produce climate smart beef, using rotational grazing across about 20 paddocks, with soil carbon measured before and after and verified by BCarbon. The credits are inset, tied to KazBeef's own supply chain, and cover soil carbon only, not cattle methane.

Critics say the 10-year non-disturbance commitment is too short for permanence, and one scientist called the approach greenwashing. At publication BCarbon had issued credits for a North Dakota ranch but not for KazBeef, and some major markets did not yet accept Kazakh beef imports.

Where to read more

The company states a goal of making Kazakhstan one of the world's leading producers of high-quality beef. Whether it reaches that depends on markets and verification, which the sources describe as unfinished. For related reading, visit the farm.FM ranching section or see a farm.FM story about beef on the steppe.