The C5+1 Presidential Summit held on November 6, 2025, at the White House produced one of the most concrete agricultural deals in the history of US relations with Central Asia. American farm equipment manufacturer John Deere signed two separate agreements with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, totaling nearly 2.8 billion dollars and covering both machinery supply and localized industrial production.
Kazakhstan secured the larger of the two deals. A 2.5 billion dollar strategic partnership agreement was signed between John Deere, Kazakhstan’s Industry and Construction Ministry, state holding company Baiterek, and local industrial partner AgromashHolding KZ. The agreement commits to the production of at least 3,000 agricultural machines over five years through an already operational assembly facility in Kazakhstan. According to John Deere’s regional CEO Csaba Lejko, roughly 60 percent of the deal covers tractors and seeding equipment manufactured at John Deere plants in Iowa, Illinois, and North Dakota.
Local production, digital farming and workforce development
The Kazakhstan agreement goes beyond machinery procurement. It includes a framework for expanding John Deere’s localized assembly operations, developing a nationwide spare parts supply chain, establishing at least three dedicated service centers, and rolling out digital precision agriculture technologies across Kazakhstan’s agricultural sector. John Deere already employs more than 600 specialists through its Kazakhstani dealership network. The new agreement adds workforce training components, with personnel receiving education both inside Kazakhstan and at international John Deere facilities abroad.
For Uzbekistan, a separate 300 million dollar supply agreement was announced at the same summit. Half of that total covers cotton harvesting equipment produced at John Deere’s Des Moines Works facility in Ankeny, Iowa. Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Agriculture also signed new cooperation frameworks with the US Department of Agriculture covering joint research, crop science collaboration, and knowledge exchange, and held follow up talks with John Deere on deploying smart agriculture technology across Uzbekistan’s cotton and grain sectors.
Strategic context: US counters China in Central Asian agribusiness
The agricultural deals arrive at a moment when Washington is working to counter China’s dominant position across Central Asian economic sectors. China’s trade with the five Central Asian republics reached 106.3 billion dollars in 2025, a 12 percent increase year on year, while US bilateral trade with Kazakhstan, its largest regional partner, stood at roughly 5.5 billion dollars in 2024. John Deere’s agreements represent one of the most visible attempts to shift that balance in a sector where Chinese and Russian manufacturers have long competed for market share.
For Kazakhstan, which is seeking to modernize its agro industrial complex and reduce post Soviet era equipment dependencies, the partnership with the world’s leading agricultural machinery brand carries industrial as well as commercial significance. President Tokayev framed the deals as part of a broader ambition to digitalize Kazakhstan’s agricultural economy, a priority he has linked directly to the country’s national development strategy through 2030. With food security increasingly viewed as a geopolitical asset across Eurasia, the John Deere partnership positions both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as preferred destinations for American agribusiness investment in the region.
