DUSHANBE, August 8, Asia-Plus — “Tajikistan is ready for 80 percent to launch a cotton-harvesting campaign, “ Saymurod Bahriddinov, the head of the plant-growing department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection (MoAEP), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

According to him, tin the Khatlon province, the cotton-harvesting campaign will officially start on August 20.  “However, some farming unit in southern Tajikistan have already begun collection of the cotton harvest,” the MoAEP official said.  

He said the Khatlon province has pledged to produce 320,000 tons of raw cotton this year.   

In the northern Sughd province, the cotton-harvesting campaign will start little later, on September 1.  Cotton farmers in Sughd plan to yield 171,300 tons of cotton. 

Districts subordinate to center (Hissor Valley) are expected to launch the cotton-harvesting campaign on September 5, Bahriddinov said.  Their target is 49,700 tons of cotton.      

This year’s national target has been determined at 550,000 tons of cotton.  

Last year, Tajikistan yielded 438,610 tons of cotton, Bahriddinov said.   

On the problems facing the country’s cotton sector, Bahriddinov named debt crisis and shortage of fuel and mineral fertilizers as the key factors impeding development of the cotton sector in Tajikistan.  The other problem impeding the cotton-harvesting campaign is shortage of cotton harvesters and other agricultural machines  

In the meantime, Boynazar Bozorov, an official with the MoAEP, said that of 55 cotton-ginning enterprises operating in the country, 53 are fully ready, while another two enterprises have not been in operation for more than five years for different reasons.  

“Before 1980, only 24 cotton-ginning factories had functioned in the country and they had annually processed 800,000-900,000 tons of cotton,” said Bozorov, “Today, despite the fact that a total capacity of the existing cotton-ginning enterprises is 1.4 million tons of cotton per year, last year, they worked only 31 percent of their capacity.”  According to him, the main reasons for such a situation are irregular electricity supplies and obsolete equipment.