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Tajikistan: Farmers as Owners
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 In April 2002, 365 Tajik farmers came to buy shares with their own savings and formed their own new company. That company, SugdAgroServ, is a cooperative fully owned by farmers from the Zafarabad and Nau districts in Tajikistan’s Sugd province. Established with support from the International Finance Corporation and the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, it is an innovative effort to battle head-on the acute poverty of the country’s cotton farmers by enabling them to manage their own commercial activity and reduce their reliance on middlemen. | |
“The farmers now have a much better capacity to…become profitable.”
--Hans Woldring |  | | For 365 farmers in Tajikistan, a joint project between the International Finance Corporation and the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs has given them a new chance to take charge of their own futures. The farmers have bought shares in SugdAgroServ, a company that buys seed, fertilizer, and fuel at reasonable prices and arranges for crop processing, equipment, and crop sales. The company became profitable in its very first year and lent $500,000 to its farmer shareholders to fund inputs. It has also arranged for technical assistance to improve their farming—and marketing. The new arrangement is a vast improvement on the old system where the farmers had to rely on middlemen for finance. |
 | “I doubled my production.”
--Kadyr Kamilov | | Kadyr Kamilov, was one of the 365 Tajik farmers who invested in SugdAgroServ, an innovative farmers cooperative in Tajikistan which is helping poor farmers determine their own futures. He obtained a $13,400 loan from the company to reconstruct a water well, buy farming inputs, and provide working capital. He also received hands-on training in new agricultural production practices. A year later, armed with the training and better fertilizers, his cotton production is up 20 percent, his wheat production has doubled, and his farm’s income has risen $7,700. These positive results have allowed him to double the salaries of his 35 employees. |
Updated May, 2004
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