Turkmenistan's Dubious Harvest Claims
Officials report high grain production but farmers say that is impossible given the current state of agriculture.
Turkmenistan's Dubious Harvest Claims
Officials report high grain production but farmers say that is impossible given the current state of agriculture.
The Turkmen authorities’ upbeat claims for this year’s grain harvest are not shared by farmers and agricultural experts. They say that because of numerous difficulties facing the farming sector, the true figure is likely to be much lower.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on July 9, Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov reported that at the conclusion of the annual grain harvest, farmers had gathered enough to satisfy domestic demand.
At somewhere over 1.4 million tons, the official harvest figure fell short of the target of 1.6 million, the Russian news agency RIA Novosti. It was nevertheless hailed as a success, as it was 200,000 tons more than the figure announced for last year.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Turkmenistan found itself dependant on grain imports, as its agriculture was largely given over to cotton production.
The harvest traditionally ends with great fanfare, with Galla Bairamy, a national holiday established in 1998, the year the harvest first topped one million tons, allowing the Turkmen leadership to announce that the country was now self-sufficient in grain.
The festivities held around the country on July 18 combined agricultural exhibits, food stalls and awards ceremonies for the most successful farmers.
Meanwhile, the state-run media put out stories saying that the harvest success was thanks to agricultural reforms pursued by President Berdymuhammedov since he came to power in 2007, following the death of his predecessor Saparmurat Niazov. The reforms included paying farmers more for produce sold to the state, offering them better loan facilities and improving social infrastructure in the countryside.
But farming experts say the reforms have so far had little impact on the fundamental obstacles that prevent more efficient production.
Under Niazov, the large Soviet-era collective farms were dismantled and replaced by small private farm holdings. But Farmers say the old ways persist, and the state continues to decide where grain is to be sown, set production quotas for farmers and buy up crops at prices too low to create any incentive.
“It’s impossible for a farmer to earn money for himself because of the contracts imposed by the state,” said one farmer. “It’s just notional that farms are held privately, while in reality we are forced to sell all our harvest to the state for next to nothing, without keeping anything back in reserve for our own needs.”
Government quotas are the same for all regions of Turkmenistan, regardless of differences in climate, soil quality and the availability of irrigation water in this arid country.
The state does provide farmers with seed and fertiliser, which relieves them of some of their cashflow problems in spring. But a farmer from Balkan, a western region, complained that these inputs were often sub-standard quality, with damp seed that did not produce seedlings.
Another farmer, from Dashoguz in the north, complained that it was almost impossible to meet government targets there because this part of the country was short of water.
An expert in the agricultural industry said the result of all these shortcomings was that a more accurate figure for this year’s production was likely to be under 800,000 tons, or half the amount the government was claiming.
He said that to keep the population supplied with the staple bread, the government regularly imports grain from neighbouring Kazakstan, and this higher-quality flour is on sale at almost every market in Turkmenistan.
A former collective farm head in the southern Ahal region who gave his name as Oraz was similarly sceptical.
“All the information that the country has achieved independence in food production is wishful thinking on the part of the authorities,” he said.
This farmer said pressure to complete the harvest meant that the end date was ordained from above, rather than being extended for as long as necessary to ensure the crop was ripe. As a result, the crop was often cut before it was ready, and would rot in storage, further depleting grain reserves.
Despite claims of high production, and the addition of imports from Kazakstan, bread shortages are not uncommon outside the capital Ashgabat. In the provinces, people often have to queue for hours before the bakeries open. People from villages near Ashgabat travel into the city just to buy bread.
(The names of interviewees have been withheld out of concern for their security.)
This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.
The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.
