The shortage of seeds is threatening the production of food crops in Tajikistan. What measures are planned to address this issue?

It turns out that Tajikistan is facing a shortage of high-quality seeds for growing cotton, oilseeds, and grain crops. As a result, many types of wheat produced in the country do not meet the requirements of flour-producing enterprises. This information is reported by the authoritative source - ASIA-Plus.

According to this information, food industry enterprises in Tajikistan need the following amount of raw materials: 2.5 million tons of wheat (with own production of about 1 million tons) and 550 thousand tons of oil crops (with production of about 100 thousand tons).

“To produce 100 thousand tons of oil, about 833 thousand tons of oilseed are needed, but Tajikistan is unable to grow that much raw material,” shared Sherali Kabir, the head of the Ministry of Industry of the Republic of Tajikistan.

According to experts, the main reasons hindering the development of the food industry in the country include a lack of working capital, high-interest rates on loans, frequent power outages, and technological backwardness.

One of the main problems lies in the need to modernize and technically upgrade the existing production facilities in most of the food industry enterprises. Currently, these enterprises utilize only 50% of their production capacity.

For example, the capacity utilization of enterprises specializing in vegetable oil production is only 20%, and in the confectionery industry - 35%.

The development program of the food industry of Tajikistan for the period from 2020 to 2025 is aimed to solve most of these problems. The program will be financed through both internal and external investments, bank loans, and the own funds of industry enterprises. The total funding exceeds 568.8 million somoni.