Cotton farmers in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan say that they grow cotton with great pains and expenses, but they buy its harvest at a price that does not make them much profit.
Now in these three countries, farmers are gathering the last harvest of their crops. The “pain” of the cotton growers of the three countries is the low price of cotton, which does not bring them much profit.
Now the price of one kilogram of cotton in Uzbekistan ranges from 6500 soums (0.53 cents) to 9500 soums (0.78 cents). Farmers say that this price does not cover their expenses.
“If it was at least 12 thousand soums, it would be good,” said a farmer in a conversation with us.
On the Telegram page, which has more than 20,000 Uzbek farmers as members, you can see complaints about the price of cotton and the attitude of clusters or communities of cotton processing.
“Every morning, hoping that some official information will be given about the purchase price of cotton, we go to the social network, and our enthusiasm is getting old, we have a bad time all day, and we are confused to draw a work plan,” – wrote a farmer.
Another farmer wrote: “Who are the artificial clusters? Of course, in the end, they reach the big top. If they buy cotton at high prices, our officials will suffer.”
These opinions were written on October 18 this year on the free Telegram page.
But the price of cotton is cheap not only in Uzbekistan, but also in other countries of the region. Farmers of the Sughd region of Tajikistan are also dissatisfied with the low price of cotton this year.
Faizullajon Nazarov, a Tajik cotton grower from Sughd region, says, “I spent 12-14 thousand somoni per hectare. The price of cotton has now dropped to 6.5 somoni. This does not cover the labor of the farmer, the farmer does not see any benefit.”
Kyrgyz farmer Zafar Otajonov said that this year the price of cotton in Kyrgyzstan has dropped significantly and they buy cotton for 65 soums (0.73 cents), which is not a good price.
“Now, according to many people, the ongoing war has also had a strong impact on cotton cultivation. The reason is that there was a drought in many parts of the world, the cotton was not good, but despite this, the demand for cotton is low. “Very little,” he said.
Zafar is engaged in agriculture with his family in Karasuvi district of Osh region. , in other years 10-15 centners were obtained. This means that one ton of cotton was obtained from each hectare, that’s all. After 2010, seeds were brought from China. I was interested in it. We tried to I translate Chinese information with Google and grow cotton. The first year was good. We got 50 centners. Here we had another land that gave 67 centners. This is an unprecedented harvest. It tripled at first. Last year there was hail. Years ago, we used to harvest up to 74 centners from this land.”
For four years, a cluster (group) system has been created in the field of agriculture in Uzbekistan. According to the article published in “Uzbekistan Nav” newspaper, thanks to it, “cotton has become a useful crop, not a reprehensible one.” The article also states that now forced labor in the cultivation and processing of cotton has been abolished.
However, according to a study that Ozodlik, the Uzbek branch of Radio Ozodi, published in early October, forced labor has not become history, as “New Uzbekistan” wrote. Radio Ozodlik wrote that “almost 99 percent of the clauses of contracts concluded between farms and the cluster are written for the cluster’s benefit only.”
Farmers say they are forced to grow cotton, otherwise they will get more profit from other products.
A Tajik journalist, who did not want to be named, says that in Tajikistan there is coercion to pick cotton “in soft ways”. He said that in Tajikistan, the obligation to plant cotton to farmers cannot be fulfilled with such a strict policy as in Uzbekistan. However, farmers are “offered” to plant cotton on 50 percent of their land. In fact, the word “offer” can be easily changed into the word “demand”, says the Khujand journalist. Meanwhile, the journalist said that the state encourages farmers and gives them gifts.
Abduhofiz Mahmudov, a farmer from Tajikistan, rented land and planted cotton this year, but his cotton did not grow well due to lack of water.
“The agricultural harvest was not good. There was no water. That is why the cotton dried up. It did not grow. Some of the lands are lying empty. Then we planted corn instead. At first, they did not allow it, but after the cotton did not develop, they were forced to allow the planting of corn,” he said.
As in Tajikistan, Kyrgyz farmers also suffered from water shortage this year. In general, cotton farmers of all three countries had many problems. The general problem is that the price of cotton raw material is not known and the unofficial price that is said is very cheap.
Source : Радио Озоди