January 18, 2012

As farmers return to growing wheat after a switch to other crops last year, Tajikistan plans to increase grain production by about one-third this 2012.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Sidzhouddin Isroilov said on Tuesday that Tajikistan, which aims to produce all the grain it consumes by 2015, would grow around 1.5 million tonnes in 2012.

The grain crop in the poorest of 15 former Soviet republics was 1.10 million tonnes last year, a 13% decline from the record 1.26 million tonnes harvested the previous year.

"It was more profitable for farmers to grow other crops - cotton, fruit and vegetables - and sell them. With the money earned, they could buy in wheat to make up for any shortfall," Isroilov told a news conference.

Tajikistan harvests grain three times a year: a winter crop, a spring crop and the so-called "repeat" sowing every July. The government aims to produce enough grain by 2015 to feed its 7.5 million people, three-quarters of whom live in the countryside.

Annual grain consumption is around 1.8 million tonnes.

Of the 2011 grain crop, wheat accounted for 800,000 tonnes. The country spent US$116 million on wheat imports last year and a further US$131 million on flour. Kazakhstan is the main supplier of wheat and flour to its Central Asian neighbour.

The economy of Tajikistan, a mountainous country sharing long borders with Afghanistan and China, relies heavily on remittances from around one million migrant workers and revenues from aluminium and cotton exports.

Raw cotton production last year increased by 34% on-year to 415,728 tonnes, the biggest harvest in four years. Isroilov forecast that this year's crop would again exceed 400,000 tonnes. He declined to be more specific.

Tajikistan exported 72,475 tonnes of cotton fibres in 2011, he said, a decline of 24% as the country processed more at home. Cotton fibre exports brought in US$198 million, or nearly 16% of the country's total export revenues.