THE CURSE OF COTTON: CENTRAL ASIA'S DESTRUCTIVE MONOCULTURE Asia Report N°93 -- 28 February 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... i I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 II. THE ECONOMICS OF COTTON............................................................................... 2 A. UZBEKISTAN .........................................................................................................................2 B. TAJIKISTAN...........................................................................................................................6 C. TURKMENISTAN ..................................................................................................................10 III. THE POLITICS OF COTTON................................................................................... 12 A. UZBEKISTAN .......................................................................................................................12 B. TAJIKISTAN.........................................................................................................................14 C. TURKMENISTAN ..................................................................................................................15 IV. SOCIAL COSTS........................................................................................................... 16 A. WOMEN AND COTTON.........................................................................................................16 B. LABOUR ISSUES ..................................................................................................................17 1. Child labour .............................................................................................................17 2. Students....................................................................................................................21 3. Other forms of compulsory labour...........................................................................23 C. LABOUR MIGRATION ..........................................................................................................25 D. COTTON AND RESETTLEMENT.............................................................................................26 V. ENVIRONMENTAL COSTS...................................................................................... 28 VI. STRATEGIES FOR CHANGE................................................................................... 30 A. SHORT-TERM PRIORITIES ....................................................................................................30 1. Child labour and forced labour ................................................................................30 2. Pricing......................................................................................................................31 3. Middlemen/investors ...............................................................................................32 4. Supporting farmers ..................................................................................................33 B. LONG-TERM CHANGE..........................................................................................................35 1. Land tenure ..............................................................................................................35 2. Structural reforms ....................................................................................................36 3. Alternative farming methods ...................................................................................37 C. INTERNATIONAL INVOLVEMENT..........................................................................................37 1. IFIs...........................................................................................................................37 2. Food aid ...................................................................................................................38 3. International corporate responsibility ......................................................................39 D. U.S. AND EU COTTON REGIMES .........................................................................................40 VII. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 41 APPENDICES A. MAP OF UZBEKISTAN..........................................................................................................42 B. MAP OF TAJIKISTAN............................................................................................................43 C. MAP OF TURKMENISTAN .....................................................................................................44 D. GLOSSARY OF FOREIGN TERMS...........................................................................................45 E. GLOSSARY OF ACRONYMS ..................................................................................................46 F. ABOUT THE INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP .......................................................................47 G. CRISIS GROUP REPORTS AND BRIEFINGS ON ASIA...............................................................48 H. CRISIS GROUP BOARD OF TRUSTEES ...................................................................................50 Asia Report N°93 28 February 2005 THE CURSE OF COTTON: CENTRAL ASIA'S DESTRUCTIVE MONOCULTURE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS The cotton industry in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and The industry relies on cheap labour. Schoolchildren are Turkmenistan contributes to political repression, still regularly required to spend up to two months in the economic stagnation, widespread poverty and cotton fields in Uzbekistan. Despite official denials, child environmental degradation. Without structural reform labour is still in use in Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. in the industry, it will be extremely difficult to improve Students in all three countries must miss their classes to economic development, tackle poverty and social pick cotton. Little attention is paid to the conditions in deprivation, and promote political liberalisation in the which children and students work. Every year some fall region. If those states, Western governments and ill or die. international financial institutions (IFIs) do not do more to encourage a new approach to cotton, the pool of Women do much of the hard manual labour in cotton disaffected young men susceptible to extremist ideology fields, and reap almost none of the benefits. Cash wages will grow with potentially grave consequences for are minimal, and often paid late or not at all. In most regional stability. cotton-producing areas, growers are among the poorest elements in society. Not surprisingly, young men do The economics of Central Asian cotton are simple and everything to escape the cotton farms, forming a wave exploitative. Millions of the rural poor work for little or of migrants both to the cities and out of the region. no reward growing and harvesting the crop. The considerable profits go either to the state or small elites The environmental costs of the monoculture have been with powerful political ties. Forced and child labour and devastating. The depletion of the Aral Sea is the result of other abuses are common. intensive irrigation to fuel cotton production. The region around the sea has appalling public health and ecological This system can only work in an unreformed economy problems. Even further upstream, increased salinisation with little scope for competition, massive state and desertification of land have a major impact on the intervention, uncertain or absent land ownership, and environment. Disputes over water usage cause tension very limited rule of law. Given the benefits they enjoy, among Central Asian states. there is little incentive for powerful vested interests to engage in serious structural economic reform, which Reforming the cotton sector is not easy. Structural change could undermine their lucrative business as well as could encourage the growth of an industry that benefits eventually threaten their political power. rural farmers and the state equally but economic and political elites have resisted. Land reform has been blocked This system is only sustainable under conditions of in Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and has moved too political repression, which can be used to mobilise slowly in Tajikistan. Farmers still have no permanent workers at less than market cost. Uzbekistan and ownership of the lands they work and no real say in the Turkmenistan are among the world's most repressive choice of crops they wish to grow or to whom they sell states, with no free elections. Opposition activists and their produce. human rights defenders are subject to persecution. The lack of a free media allows many abuses to go Central Asian cotton is traded internationally by major unreported. Unelected local governments are usually European and U.S. corporations; its production is complicit in abuses, since they have little or no financed by Western banks, and the final product ends accountability to the population. Cotton producers up in well-known clothes outlets in Western countries. have an interest in continuing these corrupt and non- But neither the international cotton trading companies democratic regimes. nor the clothing manufacturers pay much attention to the conditions in which the