Foul weather at cotton fields

Caprices of weather in South Kazakhstan can reduce the cotton growing to an absolutely unprofitable business. Last spring and summer there were showers in South Kazakhstan that literally flooded the cotton fields. This yeat a new trouble was added to the showers, - a real hail with nut-size hailstones took place in mid-July in Shardara region (the main cotton growing area of South Kazakhstan). During two hours that the hail raged it nearly completely destroyed the cotton on 850 hectares.

Despite the fact that a whole series of specially resistant and good quality sorts of cotton were bred and tested at cotton growing stations of Shardara and Makhtaaral districts, the majority of peasant farms and separate farmers continue to grow cotton from Uzbek producers.

Although the Uzbek sorts do not fell well even in the Southernmost regions of Kazakhstan, the choice of a national cotton grower as a rule depends from the price of seeds. And here the relative cheapness of the Uzbek cotton (mainly of "Fergana-3" sort) appears to be a decisive factor for the peasants.

One can't speak about any resistance of the heat loving Uzbek sort to weather changes either. The early and warm spring this year was very favourable for the development of "Fergana" sowings. But the precipitations that followed brought all successes to zero, while the hail deprived the cotton growers of their last hopes. The hail destroyed the emerging ovaries of young cotton shoots, and, according to cotton growing specialists, it is the worst that could happen with the harvest. The territory that found itself under blows of the summer hail embraces 11 rural districts of Shardara region. In total 45 farms were damaged, for the majority of which the cotton was the basic and unique culture.

- We don't remember at all such changes in the weather that are occurring for the second or third year already, - Aziz Kulubzhanov, chairman of "Arkalyk" farm, Shardara district, says. - It is something extraordinary that rain, apart from the hail, would fall in our region in July. I grow cotton for 15 years already, and we bear big losses in the last two years because of summer precipitations. If the next year the summer is rainy, then we should think whether we should continue to grow cotton at all. Even the best sorts of cotton are unlikely to withstand such climatic surprises.

A special commission has been established in Shardara district, but its main task will be to count the borne losses rather than a real financial aid to the peasants. Already now according to estimations by the emergency agency, the bad weather caused 27 million tenge losses. In total, the peasants were going to produce 2 - 2.5 tons of crude cotton from the damaged fields. Now in the best case the harvest is likely to make only one tenth, which actually will not save the cotton growers.

Almost all cotton growing farms carried out their spring sowing campaigns at the expense of bank loans. And one can only guess how they will pay their debts.

Last year a necessity to introduce a law on obligatory insurance in agriculture was discussed in Kazakhstan. The essence of the novelty is quite simple - each peasant farm independently from the forms of property and the number of shareholders, is obliged to insure its potential harvest. A special fund is going to be created in the republic precisely from these mass peasant contributions, which will provide financial aid for peasants and farmers, who lost their harvest as a result of so called insurance cases - bad weather, drought and so on. By the way, many small land owners and farmers expressed their categorical dissatisfaction about the obligatory insurance. For peasants it is one more item of costs and it is unknown if it justifies itself or not.

Nevertheless, such law has already been passed in Kazakhstan and now it could resolve problems of South Kazakhstani cotton growers. However, it will come into force only since 2005. Anyway the harvest of 2004 does not fall under the insurance.

The authorities and the Agency for Emergency Response also remain indifferent towards the peasants' troubles. The consequences of July hails and showers do not fall under category of emergencies, so there will not be any financial aid to the peasants.

- The budget does not provide any funds for reimbursing businessmen that went bankrupt, - officials say.

Meanwhile, the climatic changes threaten to influence other areas of South Kazakhstan as well, those that were not damaged by the rain and hail. The heightened humidity has been extremely favourable for the reproduction of typical cotton parasites - cotton noctuid caterpillars and arachnoidal tick.

The centralised chemical processing of the fields that took place last spring and in the beginning of summer has only partially resolved the problem of cotton parasites. Now specialists from the agricultural department of the province note a rapid secondary development cycle of plant pests.