The Open Society Foundations host a public discussion of two forthcoming publications on the cotton industry in Uzbekistan.
Alisher Ilkhamov and Jeff Goldstein share the findings of a paper, authored mainly by a former Uzbek official, on the economics of the cotton sector. It explores the means by which the government of Uzbekistan profits from the cotton industry, the extent of the government’s profit, and the costs to the Uzbek population, which include the use of forced labor, mounting farm debt, and foregone services and production.
Anastasiya Shtaltovna, senior researcher at the Center for Development Research of Bonn’s Friedrich-Wilhelms University, speaks on the results of her comparative study of cotton farming in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which demonstrates that in Uzbekistan the cotton farmers incur significant losses and debts due to the current command of agricultural management.
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