Milk yurt, Tajikistan © Chidi Ugonna

A landlocked country dominated by mountainous terrain where less than 20% of the land is suitable for cultivation is inevitably vulnerable to food insecurity. Until recently Tajikistan has been equal to the challenge but a combination of mismanagement and misfortune culminated in two emergency UN appeals for aid during 2008.

The year brought a sequence of natural disasters – the coldest winter for over 40 years which brought the economy to its knees, followed by exceptionally high summer temperatures which caused a 40% drop in the grain harvest. Then towards the end of summer a locust infestation proved beyond the capacity of government to subdue. This same period also brought the impact of rising global food prices which created hardship for the poorest families already spending about 70% of their incomes on food.

Greater national strategic resolve in agriculture could nevertheless have strengthened resistance to these extreme events. The dominant cotton industry has been allowed disproportionate access to inputs, especially water, which might have been better deployed for food crops. Inefficient state ownership of farmland prompted the government to embark on land reform intended to enable private ownership and greater investment. This has not yet generated the intended enterprise as the deep culture of interference by public officials proves hard to shift.

Irrigation structures remain in desperate need of restoration and the country is forced to import an increasingly sizeable share of its food needs. Oxfam International believes that “one third of the rural population is now food insecure (at least 1.7 million people).”

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