DUSHANBE, May 5, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- The Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) has set up a special commission to assess an actual damage caused to the country’s agrarian sector by recent torrential rain.  Members of the commission will travel to the provinces tomorrow.

According to head of the MoI industrial corps and grain directorate Muhammadi Ormonov, there is probability that harvests of various agricultural crops may perished on the ground.  “There exists such an apprehension, however, we do not yet have exact information about the actual damage, and therefore, we have decided to closely monitor the situation in the regions,” Ormonov said.

Because of bad weather conditions Tajik farmers fail to carry out sowing campaign opportunely; they even cannot to re-sow crops on the rain-affected areas, the MoA official said.

By May 5, farmers have sown cotton on 149,930 hectares of lands, which is 74.7 percent of this year’s area under cotton.