DUSHANBE, July 6, 2010, Asia-Plus — The Official Reserves Agency under the Government of Tajikistan is ready to support domestic farmers and purchase wheat from them, Abdukarim Rahimov, an official with the Official Reserves Agency, told Asia-Plus today.
According to him, the agency will begin to purchase wheat from local farmers starting next week. “At first we plan to purchase 15,000-20,000 tons of wheat from them,” said Rahimov, “Wheat will be purchased only after laboratory examination.”
He noted that Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine now provided the bulk of Tajikistan”s wheat imports and Kazakhstan was the main exporter of grains to Tajikistan. “Uzbekistan is also large grain producer but the quality of Uzbek wheat does not meet standards recognized in Tajikistan,” the Agency official added. Rahimov refrained from saying how much money was now allocated from the budget for the country’s grain imports and how much wheat Tajikistan now imported annually, pleading confidentiality of that information. He just noted that in the Soviet period, some 1.6 million tons of grains had been delivered to Tajikistan annually for the population needs and the official reserves, while cereals produced by local farmers had been used mainly as mixed fodder.
“Since areas under grains are being increased in the country from year to year, annual grain imports are decreasing,” said Rahimov, “If we begin to purchase grains from local producers, this will not only support them, this will also allow reducing grain prices on the domestic market and preserve foreign currency inside the country.”
However, local grain producers are still unable to compete with Kazakhstan in terms of quality, he said. “Local wheat may be used for production of bakery products only in the proportion of 20% of local wheat and 80% of the Kazakh wheat,” Rahimov noted.
We will recall that President Emomali Rahmon gave an order to support domestic grain producers at the latest session of the government last Saturday (July 3).
Director of the Agency for Public Procurements, Dilmurod Davlatov, told Asia-Plus Monday afternoon that they have not purchased grains from the population in recent years. “Funds allocated from the budget have gone to purchasing grains for the official reserves from Kazakhstan,” he noted. “The Official Reserves Agency is now engaged in dealing with this issue and if it purchases wheat from the population, our agency is ready to offer its services. We will act as a mediator,” he added.
In the meantime, the source at the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) says they have applied twice to the Agency for Public Procurements, proposing to purchase grains for the official reserves from domestic producers at lower prices and thereby support the domestic producers. “However, we have not yet received response to our proposal,” the MoA source noted.
Tajikistan last year reportedly imported wheat for 73.566 million U.S. dollars and wheat flours for 100.996 million U.S. dollars. In the first quarter of this year, Tajikistan reportedly imported wheat for 11.964 million U.S. dollars and wheat flour for 19.515 million U.S. dollars.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Tajikistan last year produced 1.3 million tons of cereals, with 90 percent of them being wheat. This year, Tajik farmers have planted grains on an area of 300,000 hectares.
