Families Becoming Farmers in Tajikistan

Firuza Ziyoeva, a 42-year old mother of five, lacks any sustainable income for her family – her husband is unable to work due to disabilities and their children are all young. The family currently occupies two rooms in an idle telephone station in the Khatlon province of Tajikistan.

Firuza’s family is among the 71,000 food insecure households that benefited from Tajikistan's wheat seed and fertilizer distribution in 2008, supported by the World Bank.

According to Firuza, who now has access to a tiny piece of land, “My children and I have collected 1.5 tons of wheat and produced 500 kilos of flour. This will allow us to survive during the winter. This assistance is very helpful for my family and will make a difference during the cold winter.”

The last two winter seasons were particularly harsh in Tajikistan with frequent power shortages, increased energy prices, and reduced cereal production. Coupled with the global food crisis, the poor suffered severe hardships, especially in rural areas, as production went down while food prices went up. Most of them were forced to sell off their livestock, the others lacked the required resources for food production.

More than half a million people in Tajikistan were affected by the rising food prices, according to food monitoring and food security surveys conducted by the World Food program (WFP) and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

To address the issue the World Bank launched the Emergency Food Security and Seed Import Project (WBEFSS) in September 2008.  The project was implemented by FAO in close cooperation with local governments and other non-profits, and funded by a US$5 million grant from the World Bank Trust Fund for Food Crisis Response (TFFCR).
 
“In our community, 840 households are involved in this program. At the beginning, people didn’t trust this initiative. Some of them were not willing to plant the seeds. We explained the benefits of this project through information campaigns and townhall discussions. Our farmers are now impressed with their high amount of crops and they are very happy,” said Talbak Safarov, head of Jamoat, an area in the Khatlon province.

The project, which was designed to help 28,000 of the poorest households, is now assisting over 71,000 people, and has also provided maize seed and fertilizer to an extra ten thousand beneficiaries.