DUSHANBE, December 11, Asia-Plus –  Henceforth, cotton-growing farms in Tajikistan will not depend on investors offering them cooperation on the basis of futures contracts, Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov remarked at a meeting in Qurghon Teppa, the capital of the Khatlon province, on December 8, Tajik national news agency Khovar reported.  

According to him, the cotton growing farms will be funded directly through the country’s banking system.  

Tajik farming units now owe 511 million US dollars to domestic and foreign creditors.  Of this amount, 400 million US dollars is a total debt of cotton farmers.  

According to specialists’ estimates, the cotton sector may be profitable only if cotton yields are 2.5 tons per hectare, while this year, cotton productivity in the country has averaged 1.62 tons per hectare, and cotton farmers’ debts have risen by 102 million US dollars.  

This year, the republic has yielded 419,000 tons of cotton, while the national cotton target for this year has been determined at 550,000 tons of cotton.  

“Next year, cotton production may be even less than this year, because farmers have got right to grow and realize agricultural crops, which they consider to be more productive,” the Khatlon governor Ghaibullo Afzal said.  

Specialists from the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection also noted that it could not be ruled out that areas under cotton could be considerably reduced.  However, the results of survey conducted by specialists from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) have shown that even on free choice, some 70 percent of surveyed heads of farming units have shown preference to cotton.