Agroecology: A new paradigm for sustainable agriculture in Uzbekistan

The German Uzbek Expert Dialogue Programme for sustainable and climate-resilient agriculture, funded by BMEL so far focuses on the production of climate resilient fodder and novel legume crops and the procurement and testing of related seed varieties to widen the crop rotation with expected positive effects on soil and other environmental aspects. However, changing Uzbekistan’s crop rotation and national food system in general requires more than just focusing on plant production: also socio-economic aspects play an important role. 

Therefore, the program Team, the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL), together with its Uzbek partners Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), the National Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (NAKIS) and the Veterinary and Livestock Development Committee (VLDC), organized a 4-day conference with connected workshops to inform interested stakeholders in the sector on the concepts of agroecology and to make suggestions how elements of this approach could be incorporated into the Uzbek agricultural farming system. The event demonstrated the potential of the approach to achieve more sustainability in both agricultural production and the connected food systems. The Programme intended to give Uzbek policy makers, legislators, researchers and progressive farmers and farming representatives, as well as financial and development partners, a chance to familiarise themselves with international expertise and to show and demonstrate Uzbek and Central Asian ideas, approaches in research and solutions concerning sustainable production systems.

The conference started on April 14, 2025, at the Hilton Hotel in Tashkent. Deputy Minister Alisher Shukurov opened the conference and stressed the importance of a response to climate change.  Mr. Clemens Schwanhold from the German Embassy delivered an introductory speech, outlining the purpose of the BMEL funded expert dialogue programmes, emphasizing agro-ecology as the guiding principle in BMEL’s policy and strategies, and detailing the objectives of the event. Khandam Kharsiboev, the deputy team leader of the programme, gave a short introduction to what the programme intends to achieve with pictures as ‘proof of concept’. Besides these, several speakers from Zimbabwe, Australia, Afghanistan, the Netherlands, Germany, Estonia and of course Uzbekistan were invited to give insights to different topics like pasture management, irrigation, regenerative agriculture, importance of soil biology, principles of the market economy in determining crop rotation etc.

Here for example, Mr. Roberto Aparicio Martin from the European Union Delegation in Uzbekistan shared insights on the policy aspects of agroecology in Europe, André Leu, Director of Regeneration International and ex-president of IFOAM, shared worldwide experiences in regenerative agriculture, while Dr. Axel Stockmann from BMEL spoke about the German veterinary system in a changing world, emphasizing the protection of human and animal health. Dr. Raymond Briscoe elaborated on the importance of small-scale livestock producers to the overall animal production. The Dutch Committee for Afghanistan established a network of more than 1000 paraprofessionals with besides animal and people health aspect an important role in socio-economic development of the communities through collaboration in marketing, drought mitigation measures etc.

Precious Phiri from the NGO Land Healers Foundation in Zimbabwe discussed the importance of communities in natural resource management and showed that the so often used term ‘over-grazing’ should be stated as ‘mismanaged grazing’. Roman Kemper from Bonn University delved into climate-resilient forage production, storage, and planning, highlighting the intricacies of soil microbiome and plant associations in regenerative agriculture. Simon Chevalkink from MetaMeta presented examples of 'smart' systems to improve production from dryland areas, focusing on water harvesting, spate irrigation, and making farming systems more robust, whereas Kaie Laaneväli-Vinokurov, Supply Chain Advisor & Innovation Broker, shared Estonia’s experience in transitioning from a centrally led socialist farming model to a private sector-driven demand-based farming system, and discussed what Uzbekistan could learn from this transition. The most important take-away message of her presentation was that Estonia now regrets that it ignored the small farmers in the run-up to EU accession and is now stranded with extremely large-scale dairy complexes, fully automated, providing little rural employment, but are ecologically not sustainable and form a risk to food security/self sufficiency in case of e.g. a disease outbreak. To avoid this happening in Uzbekistan the Afghan example is an important lesson how smaller livestock farmers can be reached and encouraged in developing their businesses and get mainstreamed.

After the introduction on day 1 to this more holistic approach, different working groups out of international experts and Uzbek stakeholders and representatives were built to dive into  more detailed technical discussions, in which Uzbek specialists working in their area of specialisation on specific agro-ecologically sound principles were brought onto the footlight.

Three workshops were held to address various aspects of climate-resilient agriculture, focusing on different topics and featuring distinguished speakers.

Workshop 1: Regenerative Agriculture. The first workshop was held at the Agrarian University. The discussions revolved around combining ecological, economic, and social sustainability with national food security and the national food system. Key topics included nurturing soil biology, rational water use in irrigation, climate-smart crop rotation, and agro-biodiversity. Notable speakers included Christian Wiese, who shared his experience in developing a private seed company, and Roman Kemper from Bonn University, who emphasized the importance of healthy soil.

Workshop 2: People, Their Livestock, and the Environment. The second workshop took place at the VLDC Conference Hall, moderated by Foziljon Safoev. The focus was on creating harmony and sustainability between people, livestock, and the environment. Topics discussed included current livestock policy, pasture management, livestock services provision, and alleviating forage and feed shortages. Baitemir Nаizabekov and Precious Phiri explained in detail how in respectively Kyrgyzstan and Zimbabwe local communities were included in the management of pasture resources as being part of their livelihood strategy against a government managed system, which in both countries did not work. Dr Raymond Briscoe and Dr. Axel Stockmann elaborated in more detail on the role respectively private and public veterinary services play in maintaining people’s and animal health and the development of livestock production of quality and safe products. The take-away message was that one part cannot function without the other and a national veterinary services in the ideal situation is composed out of a public and private part in close collaboration. A case was made for the family dairy farming model, which made the dairy sector in Europe and America big by José van Noordenburg, dairy farmer from the Netherlands whose farm has been visited by delegations from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

Workshop 3: Innovation for Sustainable National Agricultural Development. The third workshop, was held at the AKIS Conference Hall. It aimed to combine innovation for sustainable national agricultural development with dignified rural livelihoods. Discussions covered participatory technology development, economic and socio-economic aspects of AKIS in agriculture, and balancing family farming with corporate farming. Mrs. Kaie Laaneväli-Vinokurov detailed Estonia's transition to the AKIS model and warned for neglecting the small-scale livestock farmers within the agricultural development policy and strategies: they form a key element for rural livelihoods and maintaining viable rural areas and communities, which was confirmed with José’s explanation how she runs her farm of 100 cows together with her mother and a sister. To stress the need for more ‘innovation’ as in the name of NAKIS there were local speakers on improving soil biology from private sector operators producing microbial preparates, the need for more sound economic and financial analysis of the production processes by Yuli Yusupov of the Centre for Economic Development in Uzbekistan.

Each workshop provided valuable insights, led to discussion and recommendations, contributing to the overarching goal of promoting climate-resilient agriculture in Uzbekistan.

On the third day, the focus was on the direct exchange and interaction with the ‘practitioners in the field’ at different levels, places and situations, not forgetting the  decision-makers from the political sector.

The first group, containing the international experts for pasture management and irrigation, Precious Phiri, Baitemir Naizabekov and Simon Chevalking led a group with regional experts to a pasture area in Navoi. This area is characterized by a flat topography with a low natural drainage, high groundwater tables, and geological formations rich in salts. Due to intensive irrigation farming activities, this area also has a high potential for the secondary salinization of its irrigated lands. The focus of this group was the regeneration of pastures in terms of land regeneration and fodder production.

The second expert group visited a village in Chinaz, where a dairy farm hosted the group, invited a number of smaller livestock farmers and showed people around. In this group AFC experts, José the Dutch dairy farmer, Kaie from Estonia and representatives of the companies that import cattle from Estonia. The various challenges to dairy farming in Uzbekistan were discussed, in which the lack of sufficient land and access to sufficient water to produce the required high quality fodder for animals featured prominently.  Again during this meeting the future of dairying in Uzbekistan (family-based and managed versus corporate) were discussed and more attention needs to be given to the development of the current smaller size dairy farmers into larger ones, with sufficient access to land to grow forages as the most economic and secure way of milk production (farmers don’t count their labour and management and assistance from family members as a cost and they don’t go bankrupt or change their activity like companies do).

The third group travelled to Samarkand and sat together with the directors of the technicums, the veterinary university and the institute for agricultural innovation and research to brainstorm about the future of veterinary services and livestock extension. The two technicums in Andijan and Samarkand were recently transferred to the ministry of higher education. The Veterinary University and the Samarkand Technicum were both briefly visited and after that the team went to the institute for agricultural innovation and research, where the rector Shavkat Hassanov took good care of the group.  Mrs.  Amonova Makhsuda of the Ministry of Higher Education participated in the discussions, unfortunately the representative of VLDC last minute was taken to other duties and did not travel with the group. The discussions were lled by Abdurazzak Khujabekov, local consultant with a long-standing experience in the Uzbek livestock sector and the world of projects and livestock programmes.  Sardorbek Abduqodirov the newly appointed director of the Andijan Technicum and Dr. Bazarov Soli were challenged about the future of their institutions, with the big lack of livestock extension personnel, the complaints from private sector that there are no good dairy farm managers available in-country. Dr. Briscoe gave examples how in Afghanistan the Veterinary Para Professionals (VPPs) besides animal health issues are involved in livestock production development, community building, feed and fodder banks, cashmere and milk collection and processing and very importantly have the trust of the communities and work also on awareness raising about HIV, HPAI, brucellosis, COVID and CCHF. The wish was expressed to visit the work of the Dutch Committee for Afghanistan’s work in Afghanistan, which the programme will be working on. Two representatives of BMEL, Rebecka Ridder and Dr. Axel Stockmann attended the visit and meetings, which were in Russian and occasional translations, but could witness the ‘depth’ of the discussions, challenging current standards and organizational structures. The need to reconsider current procedures and processes was acknowledged.

The fourth group consisted of policy makers and experts working within the seed sector. Together with the German experts an assessment was made of the current situation in the national seed sector with drastic changes in terms of increasing private sector involvement and necessary changing roles of the government institutions away from production to more support, monitoring and control. In this sector there is large risk of duplication of efforts due to working in silo’s and it might merit a larger-scale gathering/workshop on the future of the Uzbek seed sector, definitely in the light of the various projects offering to ‘sort out’ the seed sector: Uzbekistan’s ownership of the development process should be established and strengthened to guide the sector’s development in the right way.

On the fourth and last day of the conference, a debriefing and synthesis meeting was held to summarize the different impressions of the working groups and to draw direct recommendations for the recognized challenges in the agricultural sector of Uzbekistan.

The main objectives of the initiative were to integrate regenerative agriculture into Uzbekistan’s food systems, share national and international experiences on climate-smart agricultural practices, and develop recommendations for sustainable soil, water, and crop management. Additionally, the initiative aimed to address challenges and solutions in livestock development and pasture management, and explore how agricultural innovation can drive rural development while modernizing the Agricultural Knowledge and Information System (AKIS).

Several key challenges were identified throughout the discussions and field visits. Soil biology remains an underutilized lever in sustainable production, and irrigation practices require modernization to reduce water footprint. Community-based pasture models are emerging but face limited institutional support and unclear land tenure arrangements.

To address these challenges, several recommendations were proposed. Strengthening national programs on soil biology and biological inputs is essential, along with promoting water-saving irrigation systems tailored to dryland areas. Expanding community-based pasture management with adapted local models and developing standardized training and certification systems for veterinary paraprofessionals were recommended. 

The outcomes highlighted that agroecology was recognized as a multi-dimensional solution, not just an environmental practice but a socio-economic framework. Enhanced institutional collaboration and empowerment of local stakeholders were achieved through active participation and field visits. A strong consensus was built on the need to align research, extension, and market mechanisms to empower local stakeholders, with proposed creation of inter-ministerial task forces to operationalize reforms.

At the end we would like to thank to all participants, stakeholders and represantatives for this intensive exchange. We will follow up on the topics set and make impact in the change of production systems to more holistic approaches in Uzbekistan.