Tajikistan: More Woes With the Cotton Harvest

Tajikistan's cotton crop is lagging far behind government targets, officials say. The crop shortfall could serve as an early warning sign of a humanitarian crisis in the Central Asian nation.

Cotton is a primary source of income for hundreds of thousands of Tajiks in rural areas of the country. A dismal harvest, then, means widespread economic hardship in the months to come. "Cotton accounts for 60 percent of Tajikistan's agricultural output; supports 75 percent of the rural population; and uses 45 percent of irrigated arable land. At the national level, it is an important source of both export earnings and tax revenue," said a report distributed by the Asia-Plus news agency.

Saidmurod Bahriddinov, the head of the Crop Sector Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, said torrential rains had prevented the timely harvest of cotton in many areas. Nearly every growing region, he added, was reporting significantly lower yields so far this year compared with 2007 totals. With the harvest season winding down, the Agriculture Ministry announced that 330,972 tons of cotton had been gathered by November 17 - just 59.9 percent of this year's target of 552,200 tons. Cotton export earnings for the January-October period in 2008 are $8.1 million down over the same period last year.

Cotton growers in Khatlon province have reached 66 percent of their 2008 target, harvesting 222,000 tons of cotton. Northern Sughd province had been slated to produce 172,100 tons of cotton, but, so far, only 85,440 tons, or 49.6 percent of the target, have been gathered.

Cotton is grown on 242,439 hectares in Tajikistan. In 2007, farmers planted 254,279 hectares and harvested 419,597 tons of cotton, which was 76.3 percent of the target determined at 550,000 tons.