Turkmenistan widely celebrates the Harvest Day in the first half of November each year. Candidate of Technical Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Agricultural Machinery at S. A. Niyazov Turkmen Agricultural University Negmatulla Hudaiberdiyev told the CentralAsia.news editors about the development and state support for Turkmenistan’s agro-industrial sector.
Economic preferences for farmers
State support has made Turkmenistan’s agricultural sector more attractive to the private sector. One of the new trends in the agricultural sector is agricultural activities of entrepreneurs who received plots from a special land fund for growing crops.
Today, private agricultural producers can purchase land preparation and processing equipment and machines through direct government support. These measures stimulate high growth rates in the agricultural sector.
In addition to concessional lending, the state provides agricultural producers with oil products at preferential prices. In July, President of Turkmenistan Serdar Berdimuhamedov signed a resolution on amendments and additions to the amounts of oil products for domestic consumers for 2022. “For this purpose, it was decided to sell diesel fuel in the amounts required for their equipment at the approved tariffs, which will contribute to achieving high crop yields, and as a result, the abundance of sachaks of our people,” the Turkmen leader emphasised.
Experiments in horticulture and comprehensive support for rice production
Turkmen entrepreneurs made special efforts to develop the horticulture industry and provide consumers with fresh fruits. Farmers and business companies of Turkmenistan’s private sector grow various crops and make a significant contribution to build up domestic production and export potential.
For the first time in Turkmenistan, farmers started growing undersized, high-yielding fruit trees and shrubs brought from abroad, such as apple, pear, peach, cherry, blackberry and almond, in local soil and climatic conditions. Manmade gardens bloomed and produced a rich harvest a year later.
Comprehensive state support for agricultural producers, aimed at strengthening the material and technical base of the industry and providing farmers with high-quality seed stock, contributes to sustainable development of Turkmenistan’s rice sector. This allows growing high-quality rice in large volumes.
Turkmenistan builds up export potential
This year, Turkmenistan’s agricultural exports have doubled in volume compared to the previous one. The export of fruits, dried fruits and vegetables, melons, watermelons and gourds and legumes, as well as non-food products – rawhides and leather has grown.
“In recent years, high development rates of Turkmenistan’s agro-industrial sector have been reported. The agricultural production and investment plans in the agricultural sector have been fulfilled by 100 percent or more,” the expert Hudaiberdiyev concluded.
