DUSHANBE, January 9, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- This year, the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) plans to allot 202,000 hectares for growing cotton, Safar Mahmadiyev, head of the MoA economic policy and forecasting department, announced at a press conference in Dushanbe on January 8.

He noted that every year, they allotted up to 260,000 hectares for growing cotton.  “This year, more than 50,000 hectares of cotton fields will be sown with cereals and other agricultural crops,” the MoA official said.

We will recall that Tajik farmers completed last year’s cotton-harvesting campaign in early December, producing only 249,022 tons of raw cotton, which was only 63.2 percent of the national cotton target and 16.8 percent fewer than in 2007.

In 2008, Tajikistan increased the cotton harvest target to 552,200 tons from 547,000 in 2007, while last year’s cotton-sown area has been reduced to 253,000 hectares from 254,279 of 2007.  In 2007, Tajikistan yielded 419,597 tons of raw cotton, which was 76.3 percent of the target.

According to the MoA, there are more than 29,000 farming units in Tajikistan; more than 21,000 of them are engaged in growing cotton.