Correspondents of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” report that employees of all organizations of Dashoguz velayat are being mobilized in a cotton-harvesting campaign despite poor harvest yield and unopened cotton seed pods.
Unlike Lebap velayat, even employees of medical facilities, including hospital aides, drivers and maintenance staff are being sent to cotton fields.
On a daily basis at 6 a.m. buses with city residents onboard head to agricultural associations and return late in the evening. Despite a small amount of opened cotton seed pods, a 30 kilo daily plan has been established, which is impossible to execute.
Cotton producers are reluctant to allow uninvited helpers to harvest cotton in the plots of land they lease and as a result, have arguments with executives of farming associations. However, the latter, through persuasion and threat, urge the rural inhabitants to accept “help from the city”.
There is little cotton on the fields and we are capable of harvesting it our own. Why should I pay people I don’t know from my revenue? an outraged land tenant from the agricultural association named after Khuduk Muradov in Gerogly etrap said.
Let us recall that Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov personally sets the dates for winter grain sowing and cotton-harvesting campaigns.This year the Turkmen President instructed that the cotton harvesting campaign be launched in Akhal, Balkan, Lebap and Mary velayat on 9 September and in Dashoguz velayat on 16 September.