Wheat yields in Kazakhstan can successfully be forecasted using a statistical crop model

Wheat production in Kazakhstan is fundamentally contributing to food security in Central Asia and beyond. It gained even more importance after recent spikes in global food prices in 2022. Therefore, timely and reliable estimates of Kazakh wheat production are important for food security planning and management. In this study, we developed a statistical weather-driven crop model that can successfully hindcast wheat yields at the oblast level up to two months before the harvest. The hindcast of wheat yields for 1993–2021 produces a median R 2 of 0.69 for the full model run and R 2 values of 0.60 and 0.37 for two levels of out-of-sample validations, respectively. Based on these yield estimates we provide a robust hindcast of the total wheat production for Kazakhstan with R 2 values between 0.86 and 0.73. We forecast total wheat production in Kazakhstan for 2022 to be 12.4 million tonnes and the average yield to be 0.96 tonnes per hectare, which is 5 % above the production and yield of 2021 (assuming equal areas). The statistical model is run with publicly available weather and yield data and requires low computational power, making it easily replicable. The forecast model can be used as a replenishment to currently applied forecasting methods supporting countries in Central Asia to meet their food demand.