Uzbekistan, Tashkent, July 24/ Trend, D. Azizov /
Uzbek cultivators harvested 6.8 million tons of grain, including 6.7 million tons on irrigated lands, the average grain yield hit 53-64 quintals per hectare, and in some advanced economies - was more than 70 quintals in 2011.
The sown are hit 1.334 million hectares compared to 1.47 million hectares last year, according to Uzbek Agriculture and Water Resources Ministry said.
In connection with the completion of the harvesting season, Uzbek President Islam Karimov congratulated the country's cultivators.
The president's congratulatory message, published by the national media outlets of the republic, says that the achieved results has been ensured through the hard work of farmers in a difficult weather conditions and shortage of water observed in almost all regions of the country.
Karimov reminded that due to insufficient level of rainfall last autumn and current spring it was very difficult to achieve equal winter crops. This situation in many regions led to loss of sowing of crops on dry lands. Because of water shortage a number of serious problems emerged also in irrigated areas. The low level of humidity of soil and high air temperature, negative impact of agricultural pests and blights demanded hard work and great mastery from the village's toilers.
Strong support for farmers was ensuring all agricultural areas, including agricultural sphere, with necessary material and technical resources, improvement of land reclamation, timely delivery of qualitative seeds, fertilizers, fuels and lubricants, well-organized effective system of issuing favorable loans, the congratulatory letter says.
Twenty years ago - in Soviet times - the entire crop harvested in Uzbekistan was fully given to fulfill obligations before the state, Uzbek annually imported 3.5-4 million tons of grain to meet the republic's needs. At present, only 37 percent of the annual crop is given to fulfill contractual obligations, and more than 55 percent of the crop remains in farms and population.
"If in 1991 the country harvested only 940,000 tons of grain, yield was 17 quintals per hectare, then this year the total amount of harvested grain has increased more than sevenfold, while yield - three times, which indicates great, truly historic achievements in the development of the domestic crop production," Karimov said.
As is reported in 2010 Uzbekistan harvested 7.3 million tons of grain, while more than 400,000 tons of wheat was exported.
According to the Agriculture Ministry, still much work should be done on the fields and grain harvesting is underway.