Cotton harvest falls short of target

Agriculture officials in Tajikistan predict they will harvest 340,000 mt of raw cotton this year, well short of this year’s 600,000 mt target, Reuters reported on Wednesday. According to an official at the agriculture ministry in the capital, Dushanbe, some 335,677 mt had been collected so far, only slightly higher than last year’s figure of 316,300 mt. The report said the main factors contributing to the shortfall were drought and a lack of funds for harvesting. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the landlocked Central Asian country, which exports almost all its output, produced 850,000-900,000 mt of cotton per year. Tajikistan exported 65,900 mt of cotton fibre this year compared with 92,200 mt in the whole of last year, the report said.