DUSHANBE, January 4, 2009, Asia-Plus — Tajik farmers have started preparations for the spring sowing campaign, clearing cotton fields of guzapaya (Tajik term for stalks left after cotton harvest), according to the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).
The source at a MoA said that more than 168,000 hectares of cotton fields in the country had been cleared of guzapaya so far, which is 73.2 percent of 230,500 hectares of land under cotton.
“Farmers have ploughed up 76,733 hectares of cotton fields so far, which is 42,500 hectares more than last year,” the source said, adding that they plan to plant cotton on 250,000 hectares this year.
We will recall that Tajik farmers completed last year’s cotton-harvesting campaign in early December, producing only 249,022 tons of raw cotton, which was only 63.2 percent of the national cotton target and 16.8 percent fewer than in 2007.
In 2008, Tajikistan increased the cotton harvest target to 552,200 tons from 547,000 in 2007, while last year’s cotton-sown area has been reduced to 253,000 hectares from 254,279 of 2007. In 2007, Tajikistan yielded 419,597 tons of raw cotton, which was 76.3 percent of the target.
