[{"bbox": [82, 120, 1170, 330], "category": "Text", "text": "Inclusion of small farms and women, largely ignored in the past, has also now become a more prominent policy issue and priority for the government, with dekhan farms and women entrepreneurs now gaining more access to affordable credit, grant funds and public services. Recent years have seen more efforts to integrate small farms into horticulture and livestock value chains through public programmes supported by donors (EU, IFAD, and World Bank). And farmland tenure security received a boost from legalization of land sub-lease to dekhan farms⁷ to produce secondary crops and the introduction of a new law on dekhan farms with the provision for allowing them to receive additional leased land, which was previously prohibited. All these changes/shifts/actions provide a strong foundation for further agricultural reforms."}, {"bbox": [82, 336, 1170, 468], "category": "Text", "text": "This reform programme has helped trigger a recovery in agricultural growth. After years of stagnant growth, and reflecting the strong supply response to reforms, the sector grew by 2.5 percent in 2019, despite a reduction in the total sown area by 2.2 percent. In 2020, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, agriculture was the driver of the overall economy's growth, growing by 3.0 percent vis-à-vis 1.7 percent of the GDP growth. In 2021, this growth has continued and is estimated to be in excess of 4.0%."}, {"bbox": [82, 473, 1170, 581], "category": "Text", "text": "Horticulture export has been the driver of this turnaround. It almost doubled in under three years, from EUR 570 million in 2017 to EUR 1 200 million in 2019. In 2020, the horticulture export was hit by the COVID-19-induced restrictions and the lower purchasing power of consumers in Kazakhstan and Russia, traditional export destination, declining by 20 percent in 2020 compared to 2019. At the same time, the geography of horticulture export kept expanding in 2020."}, {"bbox": [82, 585, 1170, 690], "category": "Text", "text": "Areas under permanent crops such as fruit orchards has increased, utilising land freed from cotton growing. In 2016, fruits were grown on 280 000 ha. In 2019, fruit growing area increased to 324 000 ha. In addition, traditional orchards with low productivity are being gradually replaced by intensive orchards with much higher productivity. These changes create a strong foundation for acceleration of future long-term agricultural growth."}, {"bbox": [82, 694, 1170, 801], "category": "Text", "text": "Agri-food sector employment has remained stable at approximately 30% of the total labour force. In 2020, the sector employed an estimated 4.2 million people. Agricultural diversification helped many workers benefit from the shift in cropland from production of low-value cotton to production of high-value (and more labour intensive) horticulture products, offering wage workers and farmers better earning opportunities."}, {"bbox": [82, 805, 1170, 911], "category": "Text", "text": "Horticulture value chain investments since 2017 have helped create productive and inclusive jobs in greenhouses, intensive orchards, storage, processing, and packaging facilities. More diverse agricultural production supported the food processing industry, where employment increased by 27%. In the textile and garment industry, employment grew by an estimated 60%. However, during the same period employment in primary agriculture has been gradually reducing."}, {"bbox": [82, 914, 1170, 1045], "category": "Text", "text": "Overall, these trends indicate the opportunities that can be created by a more diversified agri-food sector which has the ability to expand, add value and create high value jobs and sustainable incomes, if reforms are kept on track. But the success of agri-food sector reforms is also highly dependent upon their effective implementation and in considering the future, developing a better understanding about ‘how’ to implement the reforms is clearly as important as ‘what’ to reform."}, {"bbox": [82, 1051, 1170, 1184], "category": "Text", "text": "This requires strong governance and streamlined strategic management, programming and implementation structures, systems and procedures. Currently, the governance of the agri-food sector is extremely weak and fragmented. Specifically, there is a disconnection between priorities defined in the strategy and the planning, management and implementation of new policies, programmes and projects. Most projects remain, to a large extent, donor/International Financial Institution (IFI) driven, lacking effective coordination and development of synergies."}, {"bbox": [82, 1188, 1170, 1453], "category": "Text", "text": "Moreover, project monitoring is predominantly process-oriented and evaluation is non-existent, making it very difficult for the MoA to effectively supervise and control key projects and programmes, and evaluation systems are also not in place to be able to assess what has worked well or less well in the implementation of past policies, programmes or projects. Strengthening monitoring and evaluation functions is necessary to ensure more effective use of public and donor funding in support of the sector. There is also no evidence-based policy making and data management remains weak. There is a lack of factual, evidence-based information and data that can provide the basis for policy analysis, economic research, new policy design and impact assessment. In addition, processes to systematically collect, collate and analyse available data are limited and not fit for purpose. Moreover, there are currently no effective internal systems for maintaining records or development of an institutional memory or organisational learning culture. Establishing such functions and support systems will significantly enhance organisational effectiveness and efficiency."}, {"bbox": [82, 1457, 1170, 1538], "category": "Text", "text": "In recognition of these needs, in December 2021, the President adopted a new decree for the establishment of a new International Strategic Centre for Agri-food Development, which aims to address the strategic planning, programming, policy analysis and Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) weaknesses, through the development of a 'think tank' and project"}, {"bbox": [72, 1584, 1157, 1659], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁷ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (n.D.): Land tenure and related Institutions | Gender and Land Rights Database | Uzbekistan, available at: https://www.fao.org/gender-landrights-database/country-profiles/countries-list/land-tenure-and-related-institutions/en/?country_iso3=UZB"}, {"bbox": [1144, 1659, 1159, 1681], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "9"}]