DUSHANBE, November 7, Asia-Plus  -- The country’s cotton growers are taking real measures to gather cotton and fulfill the national target, which has been determined at 350,000 tons of cotton this year, Muhammadi Ormonov, the head of the grain and technical crops department within the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), told Asia-Plus on November 5.

According to him, cotton growers in Sughd’s Istaravshan district have fulfilled their target and are continuing to gather cotton in addition of their obligation.  “They have overfulfilled this year’s target by 2 percent,” Ormonov said, adding that the districts of Danghara and Vose in Khatlon are also nearing completion of their targets – Danghara district has reached 90 percent of its target and cotton growers in Vose have reached 96 percent of their target.

We will recall that Khatlon’s Shahritus district was the first in the country to fulfill its cotton target.

“On November 5, more than 106,000 people, including 12,000 volunteers, worked in cotton fields across the country,” the MoA official noted.

Cotton growers of Khatlon province have yielded 180,600 tons of cotton by November 5; Khatlon has pledged to produce 233,000 tons of cotton this year.

Cotton growers in the northern province of Sughd have yielded some 75,000 tons of cotton by this day.  Their target is 109,000 tons.

Districts subordinate to the center have gathered 8,100 tons of cotton by November 5.  Their target is 17,800 tons.

The republic has yielded 264,000 tons of raw cotton by November 5, 2009, which comprises some 76 percent of this year''s target.