Will Uzbekistan Face Famine?

April 30, 2008
Muslim Uzbekistan

Prices of foodstuffs have gone up all over the world and Uzbekistan will be able to overcome this crisis only if the country’s government finally starts to think about its people.

According to Goldman Sachs, the average food prices went up by 41% in 2007. Inflation caused by food prices, dubbed as agflation, is becoming increasingly topical.

Scientists and analysts believe that the development of environmentally-friendly fuel created this situation. Although Uzbekistan has not yet joined this trend, food prices have also rocketed there.

There have not been protest actions in Uzbekistan, like in China, the Philippines or Egypt, and this is hardly possible in the country because people still remember the Andijan events in May 2005.

The Uzbek government adopted two resolutions last week – one aims to increase the number of livestock in households and farms and the output of animal products, while the other resolution identifies urgent measures to build stable reserves of wheat in the country.

This means that the government is concerned about this problem.

The government said that these measures would make it possible to increase the number of cattle in households and farms by 1.7 million to 8.6 million head by 2010. This growth is significant, but will it improve the situation?

Let us make some comparisons. The Netherlands, which covers an area of 41,526 sq. km, had a population of 15,864,000 people in 2000 and 4,366,000 cows in 1997.

Uzbekistan, which covers an area of 447,400 sq. km and with a population of 24,881,000 people in 2000, had 5,217,000 cows in 1997.

Average daily per capita consumption stood at 3,230 calories in the Netherlands in 1995, while this figure was 1,746.5 calories in Uzbekistan.

These figures show that Uzbekistan is a country of great possibilities, but the issue is in using them. Life shows that the only one possibility is used in this country to the fullest: the enrichment of government officials. What is the link between enrichment and a looming famine? There is a direct link.

There have been several lawsuits in Andijan which tried heads of grain enterprises for embezzlement. These enterprises are supposed to conduct systematic checks of the quantity and quality of wheat in the state reserve.

Answering the question in the headline, one can confidently say that the Uzbek people will face a famine only if different-level officials do not restrain their appetites and stop worrying about their and their relatives’ prosperity but start thinking about the people and speeding up the reform.

The most important and difficult issue is the way of forcing them to start doing so.

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