DUSHANBE, July 6, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan intends to increase production of wheat flour this year, Sherali Safarov, the head of the grain department of the Ministry of Agriculture, said.
According to him, grain farmers in Tajikistan have managed to enhance work on production of cereals this year. “Since the beginning of a harvesting campaign, grain farmers in the country have gathered harvest from the area of 73,771 hectares, which is 21,125 hectares more compared to last year,” Mr. Safarov said, noting that average wheat yields in the country increased from 2.02 tons/ha in 2005 to 2.27 tons/ha this year.
Khatlon tops Tajikistan’s regions in terms of a progress of the harvesting campaign. Grain farmers in this province have gathered harvest from 43,367 hectares of lands so far. The Sughd province stands second with 20,000 hectares, and it is followed by the districts subordinate to the center, which have gathered harvest from 10,368 hectares of lands so far.
Sherali Safarov says wheat accounts for 80 percent of cereals produced in Tajikistan. According to him, the country’s grain growers are taking real measures to gather the harvest on time and fulfill the national target, which has been determined at 1.012 million tons this year. The totaled includes 820,000 tons of wheat. This year, 280,800 hectares of farmland in Tajikistan have been sown with cereals. Of these 280,800 hectares, 205,600 hectares have been sown with wheat.
The harvesting campaign in Tajikistan is usually completed by early November.
According to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Tajikistan produced 934,880 tons of cereals, with 618,467 tons of them being wheat, last year.
To completely meeting the country’s requirements in wheat, Tajikistan should annually produce up to 1.5 million tons of wheat, according to the Asia-Plus interlocutor.
Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan provide the bulk of Tajikistan’s wheat imports. According to information from the “Ghalla” (grain supply) State Unitary Enterprise, more than 90,000 tons of wheat have been delivered to Tajikistan over the first five months of this year.
