DUSHANBE, January 8, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- The government has endorsed the concept for the agriculture development till 2020, according to the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).

The concept aims to promote efficient use of resources, rational arrangement of agricultural production, improvement of provision of the population with food products as well as provision of farm-produce-processing enterprises with raw materials, the source at a MoA said.

According to him, the concept pays a special attention to development of livestock, poultry, horse-breeding, and bee-keeping sectors as well as rational use of natural resources and provision of food security.

We will recall that speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the head of the National Association of Political Scientists of Tajikistan Abdughani Mamadazimov said on January 6 that in 2009, the government should start drastic reforms in the agrarian sector if Tajikistan is to meet targets on food security.  According to him, the Soviet system of collective farms and its inherent problems has been dismantled only in name. As a result, farming families were sidelined from the decision-making process and productivity remains low.  "We have been hearing about agrarian reforms for 17 years. However, the heads of farms remain the most respected people in rural districts, clearly showing that we have not gone far from the Soviet state and collective farms by renaming them farming associations," said he, “The land should be distributed among families who have been working the fields for generations. Otherwise, for another decade, the ’heads of collective farms’ will remain ’the most respected people,’ and at the same time, the productivity of crops, not only of cotton but also grain, potato and others, will fall every year."