Photo credit: FAO
Central Asia is a region of globally significant ecosystems and shared natural resources. This story is part of a series showcasing work delivered through the GEF partnership across this unique landscape, ahead of the Eighth GEF Assembly in Samarkand.
Agriculture is deeply embedded in the economy and culture of Uzbekistan. A wide variety of crops flourish in the fertile soils of the Central Asian nation with its 300 days of sunshine. More than 25 percent of Uzbekistan’s workforce and nearly half its land is devoted to agriculture and rearing animals.
But overgrazing and drought have a toll.
More than 25 percent of Uzbekistan’s lands have been deemed degraded – the highest percentage in Central Asia – and 20 million hectares of the country are at risk of desertification. At the same time, livestock populations continue to grow, with significant demand on grasslands from cattle, sheep, and goats. These pressures have cut the productivity of Uzbekistan’s pasturelands and made soils more vulnerable to wind erosion and salinity due to reduced plant cover.
Changing this is the focus of a project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) that is helping farmers in Uzbekistan change the way they care for the land.
The project Sustainable Forest and Rangelands Management in the Dryland Ecosystems of Uzbekistan aims to help the country update regulations such as a national pasture law to show farmers all the ways sustainable land management can improve pasture health, and to introduce techniques that will help authorities spot and curtail degradation in progress.
Work is focused on the Bukhara and Navoi regions, where pasture productivity has declined by 42 percent since 2000. By its end, the initiative aims to have restored 13,000 hectares of degraded land in the area, improved land management on an additional 225,000 hectares, and bolstered the resilience of local communities through supporting the agricultural value chains.
GEF support is helping Uzbekistan raise awareness among farmers about how sustainable land and forest management methods can support land degradation neutrality goals and restore soil to a more natural and productive state. This includes measures to recover lost biodiversity and ensure greater food security.
The project will pilot Pasture Users’ Associations at two project sites to support institutional change towards sustainable rangeland management. The project also includes measures to help communities in the Bukhara and Navoi regions understand the benefits of managing their land more sustainably. These include the establishment of ‘Farmer Field Schools’: hands-on programs designed to help local people learn ways to earn more sustainable incomes such as beekeeping, milk processing, and the cultivation of medicinal plants.
Demonstration plots are showing farmers the benefits of sustainable farming techniques in practice, while teams are also supporting traditional dairy production.
Sustainable agriculture practices supported by the Farmer Field Schools. Photos credit: FAO
To ensure those engaged in containing degradation and restoring the land have robust data and information to draw upon, the project is providing the Bukhara Soil Science Institute with advanced laboratory equipment for better monitoring and mapping of land health and productivity.
These different components will work together to help Uzbekistan’s farmers bring their lands back to healthy levels of productivity: benefiting the environment, the economy, food security, and the prosperity of the country’s rural communities. In the Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, Uzbekistan is demonstrating how policies, practices, and partnerships can promote healthier lands and livelihoods.
