Uzbekistan and Russia have reached a preliminary agreement on the allocation of agricultural land on the territory of the Russian Federation for the cultivation of a number of agricultural crops by Uzbek entrepreneurs with the subsequent export of the crop to Uzbekistan.
On October 1, the Ministry of Agriculture hosted video negotiations between Minister Jamshid Khodjayev and representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation and its departments.
According to the press service of the Agriculture Ministry, from the Russian side the negotiations were headed by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Sergey Levin. The main goal of the bilateral online meeting is to discuss issues of providing agricultural land in Russia to Uzbek enterprises for growing several types of crops.
“This meeting is a logical continuation of our recent talks with Dmitry Patrushev in June this year as part of the second meeting of the joint commission at the level of heads of government in Moscow. We have reached a preliminary agreement on the allocation of agricultural land on the territory of the Russian Federation for the cultivation of a number of agricultural crops by Uzbek entrepreneurs with the subsequent export of the crop to Uzbekistan. At the same time, it is precisely those agricultural crops for which there are natural soil and climatic conditions in Russia are being considered, for example, oilseeds, soybeans, wheat,” Jamshid Khodjayev emphasized.
In August 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan sent the Russian side a list of crops and preliminary calculations for the area required for their cultivation.
“At the current stage, we propose to launch this project on an area of 35 thousand hectares to establish contacts and interaction mechanisms, as well as their practical development. And we express our interest in gradually expanding these areas to 300-500 thousand hectares in the coming years, and in the future – up to 1 million hectares. Directly this joint project will be dealt with by my deputy Anvar Asamov and the team represented by the heads of departments. We are ready to continue to work on finding new points of cooperation for the benefit of the development of the industry and the prosperity of the citizens of our states,” Khodjayev added.
Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation Sergey Levin and his colleagues noted that currently in the Russian Federation, there are about 8-13 million hectares of land for introduction into agricultural circulation, and 23 constituent entities of the Russian Federation have already expressed a preliminary interest in supporting this Uzbek-Russian project.
During the meeting, the parties discussed certain issues of allocating land areas, including the conditions for providing Uzbek partners with long-term leases of agricultural land.
The parties agreed to discuss specific mechanisms and terms for the implementation of the project during the visit of the Uzbek working group to the Russian Federation in October this year.
