Kyrgyzstan Losing Valuable Farmland

Much of Kyrgyzstan’s arable land is becoming unusable because local authorities are failing to maintain irrigation and drainage.



Azimbek Isabekov, the minister of agriculture, water resources and processing, painted an alarming picture at a cabinet meeting on October 19. At least 108,000 hectares of arable land has now been lost, he said, noting that 18,500 hectares had become unfit for agriculture in 2006 alone.



Barataly Koshmatov, director of the agriculture ministry’s department of water resources, told NBCentralAsia that nine or ten per cent of Kyrgyzstan’s stock of irrigated land now counts as unusable, and about half that amount has turned into marshland. Koshmatov explained that most of the problems are caused by drainage systems which have not been cleaned in the last 15 years.



He said it would take 460 million soms, more than 11 million US dollars, to clean and repair drainage facilities, and 252 million soms a year to keep them maintained.



Akim Akmatov, an expert adviser at the State Land Registry, said large areas of land have fallen into disuse because the pump stations used to provide irrigation and drain off excess water in Soviet times are no longer working. He called for investment, new power lines, and repairs to electricity substations and pumping systems.



According to other observers, land quality has degraded because of the state has devolved control of land local authorities which lack the skills to manage it.



Kurmanbek Dyikanbaev, who heads the Local Government Association, says smallholders do not have the money to invest in the upkeep of their land. In addition, there has been an increasing rural exodus to the towns in recent years, and those who leave are mostly the young, who would otherwise be looking after the land.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)