Where we work

While the socioeconomic situation of the country since 2000 has been difficult, the government of Tadjikistan has identified agriculture sector reform as a key poverty reduction strategy. If the transition to a market economy is to enable the majority of the population to genuinely improve their living conditions, and in order to promote social cohesion, it is essential to help the rural population understand and take advantage of the agricultural reform now underway.

It is in this context that CECI’s FARMS project is taking place. The main objectives of this project are to:

• assist new agricultural enterprises and volunteer associations in northern Sugd province in improving their economic performance;
• help small farmers to better understand and assert their rights and obligations as independent producers;
• favour the development of sustainable livelihoods for rural households of Tadjikistan, with special emphasis on the equitable sharing of the benefits between women and men.

The main beneficiaries of the project are the member owners of the so-called “Dehkan,” or independent farms, which may take the form of individual, family, or collectively owned operations. There are a total of some 3000 households composed of 21,000 individuals in this category.

Context

The landlocked country of Tadjikistan has a wide variety of geographical and ecological zones with correspondingly adapted agricultural systems, yet the country appears to have experienced socioeconomic stagnation and regression since 2000:

• It is the poorest country in Central Asia (64% of the population live on less than US $2/day);
• It slipped from 103rd place on the UN Human Development Index in 2001 to 112th place in 2002, and down to 122nd place today, out of 177 countries ranked;
• Due to the massive outmigration of men in search of work, it is the Central Asian country with the largest proportion of female-headed households;
• The official unemployment rate (2008) is estimated at 2.3%, and foreign remittances remain an important source of household income;
• Other than labour, cotton, and aluminum, the country has few products to export;
• The economic infrastructure is underdeveloped and the country has a food deficit;
• The harvest of cotton and other crops is down due to insufficient availability of inputs and irrigation water;
• The demand for Tadjik cotton on international markets has plummeted; as a result, the arable land area devoted to this crop is down by 50,000 ha, including 10,000 ha in Sugd province alone.

As far back as the Soviet era, Tadjikistan was the poorest republic of the union. The devastating civil war of 1991–92 dealt another blow to an ailing economy, with significant negative impacts for agriculture and other sectors. Frequent natural disasters have worsened the situation.

Challenges

During the project period (2005–2010), farmers were buffeted simultaneously by environmental disturbances and by the world economic crisis:

• The harvest of cotton and other crops is down due to insufficient availability of inputs and irrigation water;
• The demand for Tadjik cotton on international markets has plummeted; as a result, the arable land area devoted to this crop is down by 50,000 ha, including 10,000 ha in Sugd province alone.

CECI is facing the following challenges:

• limited management capacities of independent farm leaders;
• deterioration of farms and rural infrastructure due to a shortage of resources and capital;
• a lack of participatory decision-making processes at all levels of governance;
• women’s limited access to income-generating activities and nonfarm employment;
• limited access to inputs (fertilizer, cotton and other high-value crop seeds);
• inaccessibility of credit for independent farms;
• government interference in the activities of these farms;
• inequitable distribution of land titles; the new provisions authorize members of independent farms to use their land without constraint, thus allowing them to give land or title as loan security;
• debt problems: in 2007 the government decreed an action strategy on independent farm debt, and similarly, the National Bank of Tadjikistan capped annual interest rates on loans to cotton growers at 18%;
• decreased land area under cotton cultivation;
• obsolescence of machines and equipment, some of which are several decades old.