EurasiaNet Business & Economics - Tajikistan: Agricultural Reforms Urgently Needed -- Expert

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS

TAJIKISTAN: AGRICULTURAL REFORMS URGENTLY NEEDED -- EXPERT
1/06/09

A leading Tajik political analyst is calling on the government to carry out urgent reforms in the Central Asian nation’s beleaguered agricultural sector. A collectivized approach is no longer viable, the expert contends.

According to the chairman of the National Association of Tajik Political Scientists, Abdughani Mamadazimov, the Soviet system of collective farms and its inherent problems has been dismantled only in name. As a result, farming families were sidelined from the decision-making process and productivity remains low.

"We have been hearing about agrarian reforms for 17 years. However, the heads of farms remain the most respected people in rural districts, clearly showing that we have not gone far from the Soviet state and collective farms by renaming them farming associations," the Asia Plus news agency quoted Mamadazimov as saying.

"We must take the land from the ’heads of collective farms’ and distribute it among families who have been working the fields for generations. Otherwise, for another decade, the ’heads of collective farms’ will remain ’the most respected people,’ and at the same time, the productivity of crops, not only of cotton but also grain, potato and others, will fall every year," Mamadazimov cautioned.

Tajikistan experienced a disastrous cotton harvest in 2008. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

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