Agricultural Development and Household Incomes in Central Asia: A Survey of Tajikistan, 2003-2008 (original) (raw)

Agricultural Development in Uzbekistan: The Effect of Ongoing Reforms

Discussion paper No. 7.08, 2008

Agricultural transition in Uzbekistan, as in all CIS countries, is driven by a process of land reform, which involves redistribution of land among producers and concomitant changes in farm structure. In this article we review the process of land reform since Uzbekistan’s independence and examine its impacts on agricultural growth and rural family incomes. The analysis is based on official statistics and data from a farm-level survey carried out in 2007.

Sources of Agricultural Productivity Growth in Central Asia: The Case of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Discussion Papers, 2009

The paper examines agricultural production and productivity growth in two Central Asian countries -Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both countries are characterized by a significant shift of resources from the traditional Soviet model of collective agriculture to more market-compliant individual and family farming. In both countries, the beginning of the policy-driven switch to family farming around 1997 coincided with the beginning of recovery in agriculture, namely resumption of agricultural growth after a phase of transition decline since 1991. In addition to growth in total agricultural production, we also observe significant increases in productivity of both land and labor since 1997. These observations suggest that productivity growth may be attributable to the changes in farming structure in Central Asia. To check this conjecture we assess the sources of growth by applying the standard Solow growth accounting methodology. Using time series of country statistics for farms of different organizational forms, we decompose the growth in output into growth in the resource base (extensive growth) and growth in productivity (intensive growth). Solow growth accounting clearly shows that, first, much of the growth at the country level is attributable to increases in productivity rather than increases in resources and, second, the increases in productivity in family farms (especially household plots) outstrip the increases in productivity in former collective and state farms. These findings confirm that the recovery of agricultural production in Central Asia has been driven largely by productivity increases, and it is the individual farms that are the main source of agricultural productivity increases.

Agricultural Development in Central Asia: A Survey of Uzbekistan, 2007-2008

2008

The article presents the results of a survey of 797 dekhkan (relatively small) and 803 peasant (larger) farms in Uzbekistan, conducted from August 2007 to May 2008. After analyzing the legislative framework for the country’s agrarian reform, the author focuses on its impact on land holdings and the livestock economy (particularly dairying). Also discussed are herd sizes, milk yields, cattle breeding, feed crops, as well as household incomes and standards of living of rural inhabitants. The relevance of the survey to the state of the agricultural economies of Central Asian and other CIS countries is noted in the concluding section.

Policy Note Household Farm Land Holdings in the Feed the Future/Tajikistan Zone of Influence, 2015

This note investigates the amount of land held by household farms, as opposed to private dehqon and state-owned farms, in the twelve Feed the Future/Tajikistan " zone of influence " districts in Khatlon province. Household farm arable land turns out to be a surprisingly large percentage of total arable land used for agriculture. Tajik statistics obscure this phenomenon because they do not count household land as " agricultural. " Household farms are found to control almost a quarter of total arable land in the twelve Feed the Future districts. Nationwide, they hold 27 percent of total arable land. The relatively large total land area held by household farms and the household farms' tendency to produce higher-value agricultural products help explain why, as President Rahmon said in 2014, household farms produce some 61 percent of total agricultural output by value in Tajikistan.

Agriculture and economic development in Uzbekistan

International Scientific days 2016 :: The Agri-Food Value Chain: Challenges for Natural Resources Management and Society :: Proceedings, 2016

Uzbekistan is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Structural changes have been occurring during the last two decades since its independence in 1991. In this paper we analyze the structure of the economy of Uzbekistan to measure the influence of agricultural sector on it. By reviewing the dynamic changes in agricultural development in Uzbekistan for the last 20 years, including share of agriculture in GDP, population, employment in agriculture, etc., we argue that growth in agricultural productivity is central to development, a message that also appears prominently in the traditional development literature.

Institutional Changes in Turkmen Agriculture: Impacts on Productivity and Rural Incomes

2004

The articles examines the impact of a series of institutional changes during the 1990s on patterns of land ownership, farm income, crop specialization, and overall agricultural output in Turkmen-istan. More specifically, the changes investigated entail the distribution of state-held irrigated land to private plots min 1990–1992, allocation of land to independent private farmers in 1993–1996, and the conversion of collective and state farms to associations of private lease-holders in 1996–1997. The study is based on official government statistics, a 2001 survey of private farmers, and a 2002 survey of leaseholders in peasant associations. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: Q15, Q18, Q24. 6 figures, 4 tables, 10 references. urkmenistan is a huge country of 491,200 km 2— the fourth largest by area in the former Soviet Union (FSU) after Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Yet it has a relatively small (but rapidly growing) population of about 6 million people, which puts it in the group of FSU " midgets " (Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and the Baltic republics) in terms of absolute population size. More than half the population (55 percent) resides in rural areas, compared to one-third for the FSU as a whole, but only 5 percent of the country's agricultural land (1.6 million hectares) is cultivable, compared to 40 percent in the FSU. The remaining 95 percent of agricultural land in Turkmenistan is desert pastures—33 million hectares fit only for camels and flocks of karakul sheep (Goskomstat SNG, 2003). Thus, despite the vast expanses and the small number of people, the effective population density is very high, and Turkmenistan suffers from the phenomenon of " agrarian overpopulation " : there are only 0.5 hectares of arable land per rural resident, compared to the average of 2.3 hectares for the FSU. Prior to 1991, Turkmenistan's agriculture could be characterized as a cotton monocul-ture. Half the cropped land was under cotton and the country, with a share of about 0.5 percent of arable land in the USSR, supplied more than 15 percent of total cotton production in from official statistical sources, a 2001 survey of private farmers, and a 2002 survey of leaseholders in peasant associations. The surveys encompassed 144 private farmers (14 percent of the farmers reporting to Turkmen statistical organs in 2000) and 1,100 leaseholders (0.3 percent of all leaseholders in the country). The private farmers were sampled at random from a national list of about 1,000 farms reporting to statistical organs. The leaseholders were sampled by a two-stage procedure: 110 peasant associations were selected at random from a national list of 592 associations and 10 leaseholders were then sampled at random in each association. Both surveys were conducted in face-to-face interviews by independent private interviewers using detailed multi-part questionnaires. The authors wish to thank anonymous reviewers for insightful comments.

Sources of Agricultural Productivity Growth in Central Asia

RePEc: Research Papers in Economics, 2009

The paper examines agricultural production and productivity growth in two Central Asian countries-Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Both countries are characterized by a significant shift of resources from the traditional Soviet model of collective agriculture to more marketcompliant individual and family farming. In both countries, the beginning of the policy-driven switch to family farming around 1997 coincided with the beginning of recovery in agriculture, namely resumption of agricultural growth after a phase of transition decline since 1991. In addition to growth in total agricultural production, we also observe significant increases in productivity of both land and labor since 1997. These observations suggest that productivity growth may be attributable to the changes in farming structure in Central Asia. To check this conjecture we assess the sources of growth by applying the standard Solow growth accounting methodology. Using time series of country statistics for farms of different organizational forms, we decompose the growth in output into growth in the resource base (extensive growth) and growth in productivity (intensive growth). Solow growth accounting clearly shows that, first, much of the growth at the country level is attributable to increases in productivity rather than increases in resources and, second, the increases in productivity in family farms (especially household plots) outstrip the increases in productivity in former collective and state farms. These findings confirm that the recovery of agricultural production in Central Asia has been driven largely by productivity increases, and it is the individual farms that are the main source of agricultural productivity increases.