Kyrgystan - IMT

The small Central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan has embarked on a systematic transfer of irrigation management to local organizations. The effort is partly a response to the massive decline in the resource capability of the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources, which has lost over two-thirds of it employees since the country became independent in 1992. The retrenchment of the state has left a management void that can be filled by intermediary and local organizations, entailing enhanced farmer participation.

As with many republics of the former Soviet Union, Kyrgyzstan inherited a legacy of large-scale state farms that engaged in mechanized mono-cropping for export to other units of the Union. With the collapse of the Union and the loss of its markets for traditional products such as cotton and beef, agriculture underwent a collapse in which production declined significantly from 1992 to 1996. For example, during that critical transition period, milk production declined by 26%, grains by 16%, cotton by 10%, and meat by 69%. A fragile recovery process is underway and production is beginning to rise, but the transition has been costly to the rural sector where the standard of living has fallen.

The Soviet style of agriculture, practiced throughout the Central Asian republics of Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, was aimed at supporting the central command structure of the USSR. Thus, these republics were used as a source of warm weather crops, such as cotton and rice, for export to the northern republics. Rivers, diverted for large-scale industrial farms (sovkhozes), were over-allocated, resulting in drastically diminished output to the Aral Sea and ultimately leading to its current condition.

This inland sea, once a source of a thriving fishing industry, has receded by a third and has become so saline that the fishing industry has completely disappeared in less than a generation. Moreover, in rural areas around the Aral Basin, the environment has deteriorated dramatically -- salt and dust storms regularly deposit huge quantities of salt and agricultural byproducts across the region. Consequently, health indicators have plummeted in the Aral Basin. Although the Aral Sea environmental catastrophe is the most infamous outcome of a vastly inefficient agricultural system, there are others. Soils throughout Central Asia were "mined" to depletion, water tables rose from poor drainage, and water quality declined to dangerous levels.

Kyrgyzstan has suffered less from this legacy than neighboring Uzbekistan and Kazakstan, mostly because it is upstream and comparatively water rich. Nonetheless, the country's rural sector was profoundly affected by the collapse of the sovkhoz system. Farmers have sought to remain competitive, but without heavily subsidized inputs from Russia and "free" water, this has been difficult. Most farmers continue to grow the same crops as before because it is what they know, even though markets are unfavorable. Crop rotation has nearly disappeared and with lowered use of inputs, yields have fallen and fields have deteriorated.

As part of an effort to revitalize Kyrgyz agriculture, the government is undertaking a series of internationally-funded projects aimed at developing rural finance, implementing an agricultural advisory service, and rehabilitating irrigation infrastructure. With respect to irrigation, a major challenge will be to re-build the physical systems, which were never adequately maintained, and have now fallen into a state of disrepair and dilapidation. However, of central importance to the recovery of efficient irrigation will be the process of management transfer in which the end-users take on increasing responsibility for the operation and maintenance (O&M), and cost recovery of irrigation.

Land reform in Kyrgyzstan has outpaced other Central Asian societies because the Kyrgyz government has pursued economic liberalization at a faster pace than its neighbors. With the liberalization of Kyrgyz agriculture, farms have been dramatically restructured away from the large collective configuration to smaller family farms (between three to 15 hectares) which are functioning at low levels of productivity.

The transition is accompanied by fluid farm structures as producers strive to achieve economies of scale. This will be facilitated by moving to a land market in which land can be bought, sold and used as collateral; presently land use rights are granted to farmers on a 99-year lease. President Akayev has proposed the final part of the land reform package and leases will probably give way to outright ownership within the next year.

Part of the difficulty of achieving sustainable agriculture is that irrigation structures and management systems were designed for large-scale collective mono-cropping. Efforts by various international projects therefore will not only be concerned with farmer participation in management, and O&M, but also must focus on developing new technologies and water schedules for the more complex and small scale cropping patterns which now prevail. Farmer involvement in this process will be crucial to its success.

Among the irrigation projects now underway or in the design phase, are the World Bank Irrigation Rehabilitation Project, the Asian Development Bank Area Agricultural Development Project, and the World Bank On-Farm Irrigation Project. Each entails an irrigation management transfer component. The U.S Agency for International development is also providing technical assistance at the policy level for Small-Scale

Private Agriculture Development. Related projects are also underway in rural finance and agricultural extension and support.

In 1997, the Kyrgyz government passed a decree on water user associations (WUA's), which specifies that tertiary irrigation systems are now the property and responsibility of WUAs. Since the decree was issued, over 300 WUA's have been formed, though these nascent organizations do not yet have the technologies or skills for effective water management. Almost no maintenance of canals and drains has been carried out since their inception and irrigation supplies are erratic. The short-term challenge for successful irrigation management transfer will be to assist these associations in meeting the immediate need to rehabilitate tertiary systems. A longer term task will be to build the capacity of WUA's to effectively deliver water in a timely and equitable manner. Finally, these organizations offer one of the few opportunities for Kyrgyz farmers to engage in self-governance and begin to take control of their agricultural destiny.

Kyrgyz agriculture is beginning to recover from the shocks of the transition and food exports have risen during the past few years. However, to sustain the momentum toward competitiveness in the global agricultural economy will require achieving much higher efficiencies in the irrigated sector through irrigation management transfer.

Mark Lusk
Assistant Vice President for Research
The University of Montana
Missoula, MT 59812
United States
luskivitch@hotmail.com