Sheep Meat Production Value Chains in the Kyrgyz Republic and Export Capacity to the EAEU Member States

Sheep meat is one of the main products of Kyrgyz agriculture. It is a traditionally valuable local food product with the vast domestic market. The paper explores the trends in developing of the sub-sector of sheep meat during the post-Soviet period with an emphasis on internal production features and policies. The added value chains analysis study collects information from 48 market units – livestock – specialized farmers, market middlemen, and slaughter houses. It helps to understand the limits of production capacity, explores the internal market structure and technological constraints to export potential of sheep meat on external markets of Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) – Russia and Kazakhstan. The work also adds to the understanding of the current status of the veterinary situation in Kyrgyzstan, as well as technical requirements for export to EAEU. Current problems overview and recommendations for policy makers explain the prospectives of the sheep meat subsector for a next decade.