"Preliminary data from the Agriculture Ministry shows that output this year is 7.3 million tonnes gross," said Alexander Korablin, head of the ministry's information service. Over 99 per cent of the area sown to grain had been harvested.

The vast, resource-rich Central Asian state used to produce up to 30 million tonnes of grain in Soviet Times, but dwindling finances, the lack of fuel, seeds and fertilisers and an ageing tractor fleet have seen volumes steadily decline.

Making matters worse during the latest campaign was hot, dry weather across much of the grain belt.

Korablin told Reuters that the 1998 return was one of the worst in the last 40 years, and 40 per cent below 1997 levels.

The Kazakh government had originally planned to gather 14 million tonnes of grain this year, butforecasts have been gradually lowered.

Gross wheat output was set to slump to 5.0-5.4 million tonnes from 1997's 8.7 million, Korablin said. The total net grain crop -- after drying and processing -- was set to weigh in at a paltry 6.7 million tonnes.

Average yields in 1998 were just 0.65 tonnes per hectare against last year's 0.94 tonnes.

Export opportunities this year were limited, with Russian customers close to the Kazakh borders struggling to raise the cash to buy Kazakh grain.

The ex-Soviet state of 16 million people has around 2.0 million tonnes of grain available for export in 1998-99.

"But who needs it?" Korablin said.

Iran could become a big buyer of Kazakh agricultural products in the long term, he said, but it would take several years to complete new Port facilities in the western Caspian town of Aktau from where the products would be shipped.

"Kazakhstan will not become a major grain exporter until 2003 at the earliest," Korablin said.

The early outlook for the 1999 harvest wasbleak.

"Specialists unofficially predict that next year farmers will sow 2.0 million hectares less to grains than this year," he said. The total area harvested in 1997 was 13.37 million.

"The agricultural sector is in serious financial crisis."

According to Korablin, banks and companies which invested in the sector during the disastrous 1998 campaign would be reluctant to do so again, adding to the cash crunch already facing farms.

He said total debts owed by the sector were 120 billion tenge ($1.5 billion).

This year's poor return would mean a lack of quality seeds to plant for the 1999 campaign.

Low production is still enough to meet the country's internal demand, but could deny Kazakhstan valuable export earnings.

And for the two million people employed in the agricultural sector, Times are likely to continue to be hard.