Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The events of recent years, including the pandemic, the aggravation of the international situation, the imposition of restrictive measures and sanctions by the West, indicate that individual countries of the world are giving more priority to their own group interests, to the detriment of solving global problems and threats.

The political conjuncture prevails over the economic one, and this requires a revision of some of the fundamental provisions and norms of international relations.

Food security, the solution of its problems on the basis of the "green revolution" has recently created confidence that it will be achieved in the next decade. We just needed to join forces. But it didn’t work out.

World food security problems have grown into a global food crisis.

Its characteristic features are as follows:

– Significantly wider coverage of countries and territories, poor and middle strata of the population;

- a significant increase in grain prices. At the heart of this process is not the volume of production, but the increase in energy prices. As a result, the cost of mineral fertilizers, transportation and other services provided to agriculture has risen sharply;

– the rise in prices for cereals, as a base indicator, has a strong impact on the prices of other food products and, in general, on the inflationary process;

- violation of supply chains that have been formed over many years of world trade, the introduction of bans or restrictions by exporting countries on demanded goods, increased tariff and non-tariff regulation, the division of importing countries into friendly and unfriendly, and a number of others.

Life has repeatedly proved the correctness of the saying of the famous philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau “The only way to keep the state in a state of independence from anyone is agriculture. If you have all the riches of the world, if you have nothing to eat, you are dependent on others ... Trade creates wealth, but agriculture provides freedom.

With the acquisition of independence, the most important task in creating economic security for the countries of Central Asia has become the speedy achievement of food security.

The need to ensure food security was dictated, first of all, by the low initial level of food security in these countries of the former Soviet Union. But even this level dropped significantly during the economic crisis in the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s. Another reason was the high rate of population growth.

At the same time, negative factors hindering the growth of food production began to manifest themselves more and more clearly. They are connected mainly with limited natural resources.

The basis of agriculture in the countries of the region is irrigated agriculture. However, recent years are characterized by the intensification of the water crisis, and its coverage of all countries in the region.

According to the classification of the Eurasian Research Institute at the Kazakh-Turkish University. A. Yassavi, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan belong to the countries prone to “severe water stress”, while Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan belong to the countries with the dominance of “moderate water stress”.

Land resources are also subject to negative impacts. In particular, about 70% of agricultural areas in Uzbekistan are subject to degradation. The picture is approximately the same in other countries of the region.

Another challenge is related to climate change. Central Asia is warming faster than the world average. Average annual temperatures have increased by 0.5 degrees Celsius over the past three decades and are projected to increase by 2.0-5.7 degrees by 2085. An increase in the frequency and speed of extreme weather events and disasters threatens, first of all, agricultural production and the solution of problems of food supply.

Agricultural production is one of the most conservative branches of the real economy. Low profitability makes it unattractive for investments, especially private ones. The fertility of the land, water availability, labor resources and skills, weather and climate features - these are the main factors that determine its direction and effectiveness. All of these together form the industry’s comparative advantage. They underlie the quantitative and qualitative production and economic indicators of the industry. With this in mind, it is quite logical to organize agricultural production.

But limiting ourselves to this, as the events of recent years show, is not entirely correct. Toward the end of the last century, the direction was popular, which was called for by many international organizations and agricultural scientific communities. Its essence was that small and medium-sized countries (taking into account natural factors) produce mainly only those products, the expediency of which is determined by comparative advantages. This formed the basis of world trade in agricultural products. Adherents of another direction argued that each country should strive to produce the main list of necessary products at home.

What is clear is that the current food crisis has had less of an impact on those countries that, along with the production of products based on comparative advantages, have grown the largest possible volume of strategically important products for the domestic market.

Even in the case when their cost is higher than the world ones and it is more profitable to buy them on the side. It is important to ensure the optimal balance of economic benefits from the production of high-margin crops with food security objectives.

Since the beginning of its independence, Uzbekistan has chosen the path of combining political and economic interests in this matter, moving away from extremes. There were supporters of strengthening the material, technical, technological base of cotton growing and, due to high incomes from this area, buying the missing products on world markets to solve food security problems. In addition, at that time there was a favorable conjuncture for this sphere. Uzbekistan has chosen its own model, which absorbed something from the first and the rest from the second direction.

Starting from the mid-1990s, grain production began to develop at a high rate, due to the reduction in the area under cotton. The task was set to achieve grain independence in a short time. By the end of the 2010s, the republic achieved good results, but this did not mean absolute grain independence. And to strive for this would be unwise. Over the years, priorities began to change. Thus, the stable growth in grain yields in recent years (by the end of 2022, 69.7 centners per hectare) created the prerequisites for reducing the area under this crop and expanding the production of more demanded food products.

Changes in the organizational and legal forms of rural producers, progress along the path of market reforms, and measures taken to develop the production base have made it possible to improve the supply of the population with food of their own production. The production of potatoes and other vegetables, as well as livestock products, has increased significantly.

In 2022, the production of eggs per capita exceeded the sanitary standards, and amounted to 225 pieces, and in the coming years, the country will reach the volumes for the production of chicken meat, which will ensure the recommended rate and will send the surplus for export. In the last five years alone, the production of fish, the weakest position in Uzbekistan’s food basket, has tripled.

Recent years have been characterized by high dynamism in the export of fruit and vegetable products of Uzbekistan. Historically, the country was famous for this position and fully provided not only domestic needs.

To limit the impact of the global food crisis, the country uses both its internal capabilities and the opportunities provided by world trade. Among the first in the region and in the post-Soviet space, the country’s leadership has taken measures to expand food imports, curb inflation for food products, and create favorable conditions for domestic producers.

Reforms in agriculture continue, measures have been taken on the accumulated and urgent issues that need to be addressed. Thus, the decision to abolish the system of its purchase for state needs at non-fixed, market prices, adopted in May 2022, was the most important, radically changing the domestic grain market. The solution to this long overdue problem gave good production and economic results already in the first year.

Another no less important is the decision taken in 2022 to lease 200,000 hectares to young people. earth.

We are talking about areas with good water supply, located close to settlements, freed from cotton and grain, and used by farms and clusters.

This will surely give good results. Similar measures taken in the country in the initial period of independence made it possible to significantly reduce the severity of the food supply problem and prevent economic and social cataclysms.

Other Central Asian countries are also purposefully implementing measures based on their food security laws. Market principles are being introduced into the management of agricultural production, and a diversified economy is being created.

The course of the new Uzbekistan on the priority of good neighborly relations was perceived by the countries of the region with great interest. The political weight and economic opportunities of Uzbekistan are considered by them as a good basis for solving many problems on a mutually beneficial basis. These mainly include the following.

Water problem. The essence of the issue lies not only in the fact that there is little water in the region, the areas of glaciers that feed the rivers are rapidly shrinking. But also in the fact that these main rivers serve the needs of 6 countries in the region (Afghanistan, the sixth consumer, has recently been added). This means that all issues must be resolved jointly, on the basis of consensus. To date, solutions have been found on the main issues, and joint efforts are yielding results.

Development of transport and logistics network. There is an understanding of this problem in the countries of the region, and work is underway to implement it. Research shows great promise in this regard.

Thus, according to the Eurasian Development Bank, the formation of the Eurasian Commodity Distribution Network (ETPN) in the region will help eliminate transport and logistics restrictions, under the influence of which the loss of own agricultural products reaches 40%. Thanks to this, it is possible to refuse 70% of the food that can be produced in the region, but is imported from third countries.

Agro-industrial cooperation allows us to use the achievements of other countries and successfully solve common problems without being limited at the national level. Food production requires seeds, plant protection products, modern agricultural technologies, machinery and, most importantly, labor resources with the appropriate knowledge and skills. Together, all this constitutes agro-potential, on the skillful use of which the high productivity of natural resources depends. With this in mind, in 2022, at a meeting of the Supreme Eurasian Economic Council, the President of Uzbekistan Sh. Mirziyoyev raised this issue and proposed to develop a specific program of action for agricultural cooperation.

If earlier, speaking about success in regional cooperation, they mainly noted the growth of mutual trade in food products, now many examples can be cited from industrial and scientific activities. The following projects implemented on the basis of cooperation make it possible to effectively use the common potential:

- A project is being developed to create a fruit and vegetable cluster in the territory of two regions of Kazakhstan with the participation of Uzbek farmers. It is planned to allocate about 25 thousand hectares for these purposes. irrigated farmland;

- National Commodity Distribution Systems LLP from Kazakhstan, specializing in the storage, processing and transportation of food products, intends to create similar enterprises in Uzbekistan together with local partners;

- joint projects are being developed by Uzbek and Kazakh researchers in the field of harmless biological products that heal the soil and increase its fertility by synthesizing organic matter.

Agricultural technologies are being developed for the production of lentils and soybeans bred by Kazakh breeders in the conditions of Uzbekistan, pome and stone fruit crops of Uzbek selection - in Kazakhstan. A project is being implemented with the participation of scientists from both countries to develop new varieties of cotton, a joint laboratory for biological plant protection;

- Kyrgyzstan is showing great interest in the development of grain growing using Uzbek seeds, as well as early ripe varieties of cotton, seedlings of fruit trees. It is planned to implement a project to create a joint seed-growing enterprise.

Efforts of the countries of Central Asia. on the way to achieving food security give their results. This is clearly reflected in the indicators of international food security indices.

In particular, according to the Global Food Security Index (GFSI), compiled by the British agency The Economist, at the end of 2022, Kazakhstan ranked 32 (in 2021 - 41), Uzbekistan - 73 (in 2021 - 78), Tajikistan is 75 (83 in 2021) out of 113 countries of the world.

And in terms of the highest growth rates in 2019-2022. Uzbekistan ranked first among 10 countries.

In general, the food crisis, as a global phenomenon, did not arise spontaneously, and will have a long history. We must be ready, first of all, using our capabilities and internal resources, as well as relying on international cooperation, to mitigate its consequences for our country. At the same time, this crisis should be seen as a good chance to give a new breath to the industry and resolve many domestic and international issues.

MICA Chief Researcher Nosirjon Yusupov