On October 16, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev held a meeting on the priority tasks of developing livestock and horticultural industries.
Taking into account these spheres for development of domestic agriculture, over the past two years the State Committee for Veterinary and Livestock Development, the Chorvanasl Agency, the agencies for development of horticulture and greenhouse farming, and the development of viticulture have been organized.
Activities implemented in the livestock industry and plans for the future were discussed at the meeting. In 2019, 1 trillion 603 billion soums were allocated for development of livestock farming, 332 billion soums of soft loans were allocated for poultry farming under the program “Every family entrepreneur”. As a result, the number of small cattle increased by 550 thousand heads, poultry – by 6 million 130 thousand.
It was noted that the ongoing work on providing the population with affordable meat and dairy products has shortcomings. Issues of establishing an uninterrupted supply of feed, which is today an urgent problem of the industry, were considered. Today, the need for feed in livestock is provided only by 30-35 percent. In poultry, 85 percent of the feed requirement is covered by imports.
It was noted that today 486 projects have been developed for breeding 182 thousand head of cattle on grasslands and meadows with an area of 1 million hectares in Takhtakupir, Kungrad, Kegeyli and Muynak districts of Karakalpakstan.
Responsible persons were instructed to accelerate activities on the organization in 2019-2021 of 270 livestock complexes and 260 dairy enterprises, designed for the maintenance of 300-500 livestock each.
It is necessary first of all to pay special attention to breeding for achieving high productivity in animal husbandry. In this regard, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy and Industry was instructed to develop, on the basis of foreign experience, a mechanism for subsidizing expenses in the sphere in order to develop pedigree breeding and reduce production costs.
Horticultural issues were also discussed at the meeting. It was noted that over 9 months of this year, exports of fruits and vegetables reached almost 1 billion USD. It was noted that there are unused opportunities for further increasing this indicator due to the efficient use of vacant land and cultivation of popular varieties.
The President noted that work in this direction still does not meet the requirements. In particular, the study showed that in Kibray and Tashkent districts, 912 hectares or 20 percent of orchards, 164 hectares or 13 percent of vineyards are outdated or have low profitability. In addition, 1,400 hectares of unused rainfed land, as well as 4,040 hectares of land on which grain is grown, were identified. 19 agricultural processing enterprises operating in these districts operate at half capacity.
In this regard, a completely new system will be introduced in all 55 areas specialized in horticulture. Cooperatives will be organized in these districts with participation of exporters, supplying their products abroad under their own trademark, as well as processing enterprises. Placing crops will be carried out on the basis of proposals from cooperatives; they will facilitate the supply of seedlings for orchards and vineyards, and will help to increase crop yields. At the same time, the task was set to open training centers for training in agricultural engineering in each district specializing in horticulture.
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Agriculture were instructed to develop specific practical proposals for implementation of the new system and financing cooperatives.
The ultimate goal of implementation of the tasks set at the meeting is to bring the volume of export of fruits and vegetables to 5 billion USD a year.
Information of responsible persons was heard and priority tasks for the future were identified on the issues discussed at the meeting.
