DUSHANBE, March 4, Asia-Plus  -- 63 percent of agricultural machines have already been prepared for the spring sowing campaign, which is expected to start after the Navrouz holiday (March 21-22), Sharif Homidov, the head of the technical policy and agrarian infrastructure development directorate within the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.

            According to him, there are 16,885 agricultural machines in the agrarian sector.  Of them, 10,645 have to date been prepared for the sowing campaign, the MoA official said.   

“8,000 tractors are needed to carry out well-timed plowing, while we have only 3,310 tractors,” Homidov said, noting that only 70 percent of those 3,310 tractors have to date been operational.  

He added that 36 new agricultural machines have been delivered to the country since the beginning of this year.  Last year, 238 agricultural machines were delivered to Tajikistan.  

According to the MoA, various agricultural crops are expected to have been planted on some 500,000 hectares this year.  More than 240,000 hectares of those areas are allotted for cotton.