Farmers in Namangan buy wheat at 200 sums to sell it to the state at 108
"I wish I were anyone but a farmer," this is a general disposition in kishlaks [settlements] of the Namangan region nowadays. Farming is a dangerous pastime here. The state expects a certain wheat quota from every farmer and the state does not tolerate failure lightly. Whoever fails to meet the quota gets jailed.
Harvesting campaign in the region is over, and what farmers failed to meet the required quota are in trouble. The quota is to be met at whatever cost. Farmers buy wheat at the local bazaars at 200 sums a kilogram and sell it to the state at 108 sums. What farmers are not so smart or cannot afford wheat from bazaars meet with their district prosecutor.
"My farm could not meet the quota this year. Two policemen turned up at my place at 11 p.m. and escorted me to the prosecutor," a farmer said on the condition of anonymity.
According to the farmer, the crop was disappointing this year - only 25 centners per hectare even though the yield is sometimes known to reach 80 hectares (given the right weather and variety of wheat). The farmer attributes this state of affairs to the meddling on the part of the local administration. Instead of working the fields, farmers are compelled to waste hours at all sorts of conferences with the hokim [the head of administration]. The prosecutor present at the conferences is ever ready to press criminal charges against farmers.
"The sowing campaign was two months late precisely because of our hokim," another farmer said. "The farms that did everything in September are all right now, but I was delayed until November. It affected the yield, and I have problems with now. I do not think I will meet the quota."
The farmer will probably fake the documents now to show that his farm has met the quota.
When Ferghana.Ru published the material "Secret Services Control Uzbek Farmers During Harvesting" (), some farmers were eventually paid for the last year crop. There are problems even with it, however, because money attracts all sorts of crooks.
Money is transacted to farmers' bank accounts. Along with paying taxes and tariffs for communal services, every farm is also expected to transact something for development of juvenile athletics, another sum to the bank account of football club Navbahor (the Namangan regional top cop is its president), and so on. Moreover, banks make the transactions automatically, without bothering to obtain permission from farmers themselves. And the sums they transact are considerable.
"I cannot even pay for my son's college out of what I'm left with," a farmer said. "It takes a great deal of humiliation and begging to be left with the necessary sum..."
The Andijan and Namangan regions are neighbors, but conditions there are vastly different. Farmers in the former are through with wheat and have already planted rice. Farmers in the latter on the other hand are only permitted to plant rice on 10% of the fields for the time being. (Rice is mostly cultivated on individual land plots only.) Farmers say in the meantime that rice is good for the soil. It rids the soil of salts and that does a lot of good to cotton yield.
"Cotton is much better on the fields where I had rice last year," a farmer said.
The dekhans [peasants] are not permitted to plant potatoes, corn, or beans on the fields free of wheat. The authorities are convinced that "the land needs some rest too" - and that is that.