Private agricultural sector struggles with basics - like water

Uzbekistan's private farmers say they face an uphill task making a living from the land. One of the key instruments of agricultural reform in Uzbekistan - rural water management groups - face severe problems due to economic and administrative obstacles, IRIN learnt on Thursday. Water User Associations (WUAs) are supposed to lobby for adequate irrigation water for the country's growing number of private farms. Following the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, Uzbekistan, the world's number five cotton producer, started to decentralise its cotton-dominated agricultural economy splitting big collective farms into three different forms - collective farms (shirkats), private farms and small family farms. “But irrigation and drainage systems were not designed to serve small scale farms. Newly reorganised collective farms [shirkats], which consist of thousands of hectares of land, have problems with sharing water among themselves and with private farms,” Oshikmamut Ibraimov, head of the water resources department of the ministry of agriculture and water management, told IRIN in the capital Tashkent. As a result, independent farmers often run short of water to irrigate their crops. In addition, Uzbek water law designates collective farms as primary water users. The government doesn't take responsibility for water delivery to private farmers, known as secondary water users. “Private farmers had to unite in order to get water, to maintain irrigation and drainage systems. So, three years ago, the ministry allowed the formation of the WUAs,” Ibraimov said. According to Ibraimov, there are more than 2,000 WUAs in Uzbekistan with 57,300 members growing mainly cotton and wheat. But independent observers stress that very few WUAs operate properly and independently as NGOs. Those that do tend to be supported by international development organisations such as the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Mehmood ul Hassan, country head of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), funded by the Swiss Agency for International Development, believes that most of the WUAs exist only on paper. “They were formed according to orders received by local authorities. Usually a local official is appointed as head of the NGO and private farmers have never been consulted or informed about it. As a result, farmers, who are supposed to pay for membership, actually don’t control the WUAs,” he said. Although the government claims to support the independent water groups, like many non-governmental initiatives in Uzbekistan, they are beset by bureaucratic problems. The first hurdle a new WUA faces is registration with the justice ministry as an "official NGO". This process can take months and has been made more difficult of late as Tashkent has sought to clamp down on the non-governmental sector - wary of a Georgia-style velvet revolution where foreign NGOs were active. The second problem is the tendency of local authorities to try and keep everything under their own control, Soviet-style, according to an agricultural expert. “Despite the loud statements on reform and privatisation in the agricultural sector, private farmers have no real autonomy. They are still being tightly controlled by local governors eager to meet government quotas on cotton and wheat - just as it used to be under Soviet rule,” he said, under condition of anonymity. Meanwhile, local governors continue to enjoy unlimited power over agriculture in their regions, according to the expert. “Recently two district governors in the central Samarkand region under direct instruction from the police, seized equipment from two WUAs donated by USAID. Only after the intervention of high level officials from USAID was the equipment returned,” he said. It's difficulties like these that have led to IWMI to build up WUAs from the bottom up in order to show how effective these bodies can be if they are properly run. It is implementing small projects in the Fergana Valley part of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, one project in each country. “The whole process of establishing a WUA as an NGO has been documented and put on our website in Uzbek and Russian languages, including guidelines and advice for people who want to create them,” said ul Hassan. But water is just one of many challenges private farmers are dealing with. Another problem faced by the agricultural private sector is the government’s quota system for cotton and wheat. Government prices for such crops tend to be much lower than their open market value, impacting on the viability of independent farming. “Farmers have become even poorer than before. Most of the cash they get comes from their garden and kitchen farms, not from cotton or wheat,” said ul Hassan. “If farmers don’t earn income properly how can they invest in their infrastructure, how can they ensure that their irrigation systems are maintained?” he asked. Earlier a farmer in the Fergana Valley told IRIN that government policy meant most farmers rapidly fell into debt. “At the start of the year we are given credit for seeds, fertilises, pesticides and other technical services, but we are not allowed to use that money as we see fit. We don’t see that money at all. Government provides everything to grow crops and also takes back all the harvest,” he complained. The credit cannot be used to pay for water. Instead farmers are expected to pay at least 70 percent of their water bill in cash. “How can farmers pay in cash if they do not see any cash throughout the year?” another farmer asked. According to ul Hassan, the most important ways to develop WUAs in Uzbekistan are to make agriculture profitable for farmers and to empower the WUAs to be independent. “Cotton is very important for the government. But instead of forcing farmers to grow cotton by decree, the authorities should develop an incentive approach to the issue. Farmers are eager to grow cotton if they are paid the right price in a free market,” he added.