As cotton production is being switched with vegetable farming, Uzbekistan will cut its cotton output by 10 per cent over the next five years, President Islam Karimov says. Production in Uzbekistan, the world's fifth ranked cotton producer, will fall by 0.5million tonnes to 3.0 million tonnes by 2020, according to a speech published on the President's official website recently. Karimov said the move would free up irrigated land for vegetable farming.

During the Soviet period cotton and textile production became Uzbekistan's main industries and the over 1million citizens are mobilised for the annual harvest, in a practice that has sparked accusations of slave labour. Around 40 per cent of production is consumed locally, in a textile industry that accounts for more than a quarter of industrial production. But falling cotton prices, and a drive toward self-sufficiency in food stocks, is encouraging a shift away from cotton.

The government has already achieved its goal of wheat self-sufficiency, and now attention is turning to fruit, vegetable and rice production.

Farmers in certain areas have already been released from a legal obligation to cultivate cotton, although subsidies remain in place. This shift in priorities is putting pressure on irrigated land availability. In November of last year, the US Department of Agriculture forecast a long-term fall in planted areas of cotton in Uzbekistan, but saw production remaining steady thanks to agronomic improvement.

Karimov highlighted the ‘sharp decline of prices and demand for cotton fibre on the world market’ as well as the need for higher vegetable production. Global cotton demand has weakened, as buying from China dries up. Chinese imports have been hit by a slowdown in growth in the industrial economy, as well as very high state-inventories, acquired during a period of stockpiling aimed at supporting domestic farmer incomes. Recently news agencies reported that the Chinese government was preparing to auction off more of its estimated 11million tonnes of inventories, after an abortive auction last year, where less than 1 per cent of the 1million tonnes offered was sold.