Cotton Target Set Unfeasibly High
Cotton Target Set Unfeasibly High
Cotton farmers in Tajikistan are too debt-laden and ill-equipped to meet the government’s unrealistically high target for this year’s harvest, say NBCentralAsia experts.
Prime Minister Akil Akilov has ordered government agencies and commercial institutions engaged in the agricultural sector to make sure the entire crop is harvested, the state-run Khovar news agency reported on August 6. Cotton farmers are to be paid back wages, agricultural machinery put in order, and other steps taken ahead of the harvest.
Cotton is the main agricultural crop in Tajikistan, taking up half of the country’s irrigated land and earning almost 10 per cent of its export revenues.
The ministry of economic development and commerce has estimated that farmers should bring in 535,000 tons of raw cotton this year.
However, deputy agriculture and environment minister Shukrullo Rahimnazarov has said that there is no way of knowing whether farmers will be able to hit this target until countrywide data on cotton growth patterns has been collected.
NBCentralAsia experts say it will be virtually impossible to achieve the government’s aim. They say no official target has been met in the past 15 years.
Tajikistan used to pick one million tons of cotton a year when it was still part of the Soviet Union, but the crop has been steadily dwindling since independence in 1991 and has not exceeded 450,000 tons for the past two years, even though the official target has been set at 550,000 tons since 2004.
Vahob Vahidov, head of agro-industrial strategy at the Institute for Economic Research, says yields have been falling in recent times so the target is less attainable than ever. To do so, farmers would need to grow to tons of raw cotton per hectare, whereas most cannot manage more than 1.5 or 1.7 tons.
Vahobov believes cotton farmers could double these yields, reaching three to four tons per hectare, if there was more funding available for the sector so that farms could buy the machinery and fertilisers they need and improve soil quality.
Economist Gurez Rahimov believes the debt burden facing cotton farms is insurmountable. Farmers have built up a 400 million US dollar debt to the “futures companies” which advance funds with the next harvest as collateral. There is no way they can boost production when they owed up to 2,000 dollars for every hectare they have, he said.
Economist Sodik Ismailzoda argues that cotton is no longer cost-effective, and the government should scale down the area under cultivation and encourage farmers to grow cheaper, more profitable crops like potatoes instead.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
Prime Minister Akil Akilov has ordered government agencies and commercial institutions engaged in the agricultural sector to make sure the entire crop is harvested, the state-run Khovar news agency reported on August 6. Cotton farmers are to be paid back wages, agricultural machinery put in order, and other steps taken ahead of the harvest.
Cotton is the main agricultural crop in Tajikistan, taking up half of the country’s irrigated land and earning almost 10 per cent of its export revenues.
The ministry of economic development and commerce has estimated that farmers should bring in 535,000 tons of raw cotton this year.
However, deputy agriculture and environment minister Shukrullo Rahimnazarov has said that there is no way of knowing whether farmers will be able to hit this target until countrywide data on cotton growth patterns has been collected.
NBCentralAsia experts say it will be virtually impossible to achieve the government’s aim. They say no official target has been met in the past 15 years.
Tajikistan used to pick one million tons of cotton a year when it was still part of the Soviet Union, but the crop has been steadily dwindling since independence in 1991 and has not exceeded 450,000 tons for the past two years, even though the official target has been set at 550,000 tons since 2004.
Vahob Vahidov, head of agro-industrial strategy at the Institute for Economic Research, says yields have been falling in recent times so the target is less attainable than ever. To do so, farmers would need to grow to tons of raw cotton per hectare, whereas most cannot manage more than 1.5 or 1.7 tons.
Vahobov believes cotton farmers could double these yields, reaching three to four tons per hectare, if there was more funding available for the sector so that farms could buy the machinery and fertilisers they need and improve soil quality.
Economist Gurez Rahimov believes the debt burden facing cotton farms is insurmountable. Farmers have built up a 400 million US dollar debt to the “futures companies” which advance funds with the next harvest as collateral. There is no way they can boost production when they owed up to 2,000 dollars for every hectare they have, he said.
Economist Sodik Ismailzoda argues that cotton is no longer cost-effective, and the government should scale down the area under cultivation and encourage farmers to grow cheaper, more profitable crops like potatoes instead.
(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)
