Uzbekistan is striving to introduce new technologies for irrigating farmland by providing subsidies and tax incentives to farmers. However, many farmers still use old irrigation methods of watering for fear of failure.
Fresh water scarcity is becoming one of the threatening challenges to humanity. This process is already so obvious, and the fact that it will only increase due to climate change is evidenced by scientists’ forecasts, forecasters’ observations, and the annual reduction of water flow in large and small rivers of Central Asian countries.
Residents of Central Asian countries have already seen this with their own eyes. Rising summer temperatures, abnormally cold or warm winters, more frequent droughts and their consequences in recent years make it necessary to take measures.
All countries will sooner or later have to switch to water-saving mode, because, as it turns out, this “inexhaustible” resource may sooner or later be exhausted.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Central Asian countries are among those with high levels of “water stress” – a term that is used as an indicator of the level of pressure on water resources.
The FAO’s 2021 report states that “water use in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan has reached critical levels.” Uzbekistan’s water use rates are higher than the global level at 169 percent, Turkmenistan’s at 144 percent, Tajikistan’s at 62 percent, and Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan’s at 50 percent and 33 percent, respectively.
The total irrigated area in Uzbekistan is 4.2 million hectares, and agriculture is the largest consumer of water resources – over 90% of water is used in this sector.
Realizing the full scale of the problem, the Uzbek authorities are actively engaged in supporting farmers who use water-saving technologies. Since 2019, the country has been working on a mechanism to allocate cash subsidies to support cluster organizations and farmers.
In an interview with CABAR.asia, Davron Kdyrbayev, head of the Department of Water-Saving Scientific and Innovative Technologies of the Ministry of Water Resources of the country, said that until 2018, the area of the country where water-saving technologies were introduced amounted to 28,000 hectares. Today, this indicator has already reached 1.26 million hectares or 30% of irrigated areas.
“Only in 2023, these technologies were introduced on the area of 389 thousand hectares, including 74.1 thousand hectares of drip, 17.7 thousand hectares of sprinkler, 9.4 thousand hectares of discrete, 74.7 thousand hectares of other types of water-saving technologies were introduced, 212.7 thousand hectares of sown land were leveled with the help of laser equipment,” he said.
He says the introduction of new water saving technologies is beneficial to both the state and farms.
“According to the analysis, the introduction of water-saving technologies increases yields up to 10-15 quintals in cotton cultivation, while water resources are saved by 20-60%, fuel and lubricants and mineral fertilizers – by 25-35%,” he said.
The specialist cited as an example the activity of the farm “Rabotning barakali zamini” of Kyzyltepa district, which saved 150 thousand cubic meters of water during the season as a result of drip irrigation of 58 hectares of cotton fields last year and achieved a yield of 40-45 centners in the first harvest. Before the introduction of the technology, 6-6.5 thousand cubic meters of water were used per hectare of cotton field per year, with an average yield of 25-30 quintals. And there are many such examples, Kdyrbayev said
Farmers who use the new irrigation technologies and specialists also speak of their effectiveness and call for their widespread adoption.
Yuldosh Hasanov, a 55-year-old employee of the Zamin Angor cluster in Surkhandarya province, said their cluster was one of the first to apply drip irrigation technology, and in 2023 they have already used drip irrigation for 335 hectares of grain and cotton fields.
“Drip irrigation technology has been of great benefit to irrigation. We realized that it is a very economical project. Earlier, for one hectare of land we used to pour water from 8 places and a lot of water was wasted. Now with drip irrigation technology, water is poured from only one place. It is very convenient and economical. With drip irrigation, water reaches the very boll of the cotton plant. Drip irrigation technology is a very economical project. The water reaches the plant itself but does not reach other weeds,” he said.
After only a year, even though they made some small mistakes due to inexperience, the obvious savings and benefits have encouraged the workers on their farm, Hasanov emphasized. In the new year, the Zamin Angor cluster plans to introduce drip irrigation technology on another 100 hectares of fields.
“Now instead of 10 watering machines, one waterer works. His duty is to turn the pump on and off. Water is also saved. Now 3 times less water is used due to drip irrigation. […] 17 hectares of land are irrigated simultaneously. This is a very convenient and excellent technology. We used to get 22-25 quintals of cotton from 1 hectare of cotton, and now we get 40-42 quintals from 1 hectare of cotton. I believe that it is necessary to introduce drip irrigation technology for such fields in all regions of our republic,” he said.
Drip irrigation technology has one problem – it is necessary to clean water filters installed in the pipes. And since these technologies are imported from China, filters are very expensive. About 25 million soums (just over US $2,000,000) must be spent on each hectare of land to implement drip irrigation technology, Hasanov added.
Meanwhile, observers note that the high cost of the equipment, as well as the lack of profit in the first year, is indeed an inhibiting factor in introducing new technologies for many farmers in Uzbekistan.
Zakhriddin Jalolov, a farmer from Surkhandarya Province, says he is used to working with old methods. His fear is that drip irrigation is very expensive and will be difficult to pay off.
“We are afraid, it will be very expensive. The cost of implementing these technologies will be very high. We are afraid that we will not be able to make a profit and pay back the loans on time,” Jalolov said.
Such fears do exist. Davron Kdyrbayev said that for the first 1-2 years, the benefits and advantages of introducing new technologies will not be noticeable.
“It is also true that this technology has not been well received by some farms. The main reasons for this are different. For example, there are many factors to consider when adopting the technology. A farmer who wants to implement irrigation at the end of May must be prepared to implement the technology a year in advance. Considering the additional costs of implementing the technology compared to irrigation, it is better for farms to implement this technology from the most productive areas,” he says.
However, in his opinion, state support in this area is sufficient for today, including, for example, subsidies for tax breaks.
In January of this year, the President of the country issued a decree “On measures to improve the water management system and increase the efficiency of water use at the grass-roots level”, according to which measures should be taken to strengthen the introduction of water-saving irrigation technologies and “abandon the stereotype “water is free” formed in the minds of the population by increasing the culture of water use”.