FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia

How Uzbekistan’s farmers are overcoming soil salinity and water shortages

©Temur Khujanazarov

05/12/2023

“I’ve been farming this land all of my life and seen so many people from this area leave over the years because of the heat, dry weather and water shortages,” says Adyl Khujanov, who runs a farm in the village of Kyzylkesek, in western Uzbekistan’s Karakalpakstan region.

The Central Asian country is double land-locked – meaning it is surrounded by countries that are themselves landlocked – and more than half of Uzbekistan’s soils are salt-affected making it extra hard to farm productively.