 Why am I why am I talking about this region? I thought it could be interesting to give a little bit of an insight from from a project which Which I was running when I was in in Bonn as who explained at the Center for Development Research on land and water use in Uzbekistan and Actually, we called this project originally Economic and ecological restructuring of land and water use in irrigated areas in Uzbekistan Later we found out that was a very long title and at one point I was carrying a big plexiglass sign For a new building that says German Uzbek landscape project And so I thought why why we are having all these landscape discussions here and see for It might be useful to to get an insight from a project that was Running for ten years in that region with with the funding from the German Ministry of Education and Research Which I was heading mostly from Bonn Why my colleague John Lamas was the person who was mostly running the show in Uzbekistan, so it was a large project We had about one million euro funding per year, which was good to have in that region and we looked at So as I said we looked at land and water use in the context of the arrow in the in the arrow See Basin the arrow see as you may know was once the fourth largest sweetwater lake in the world and it has been Disappearing over the last 40-50 years. So now we have 10% of the original size left both in volume and in surface so basically a very huge like it has disappeared and and why because In the Soviet Union there was a huge expansion of irrigated area areas in that region because that region was basically the the region where cotton was produced as a strategic good and cotton needs warm days and So that was a good that's actually the northern most region where you can grow cotton and so it was It was very important for the Soviet Union to have that and when the Soviet Union collapsed the country is actually continued doing this and Uzbekistan is nowadays the The six largest cotton producer in the world and the second largest cotton exporter in the world so still cotton production continues and it's very dominant together nowadays with wheat and It's happening in in irrigated areas that that increased from two million hectares to two eight million hectares over the course of 60 years so all that water that's that originally was going into the Elsie is now going into these irrigated areas and then flowing somewhere else or disappearing into the atmosphere and there are a lot of ecological problems and livelihood problem problems and Of course international the international debate was in the beginning. Oh, can we fill this I'll see can we can we get it back? there was a lot of diversity fish production and so on and In that project we did once we did modeling Modeling exercise to see whether it could actually be done and we found that you could only do it You could only refill the lake if you were Sending all these 40 million people that are now living in that region away so 30 million of these are rural and A third of these rural people are living in a very high poverty. So Basically our project was not looking at the ILC. It was looking at how to improve livelihoods in that region and at the same time look at more ecological more sustainable resource use So what we did is actually have we tried to to develop an integrated approach on on on Basically starting with technical issues how to improve land use how to improve water use how to how to bring in different crops that diversify a bit from the cotton wheat almost monoculture and How to bring in crops that that could be used on very degraded land when you irrigate a lot then you you create basically a Second what's called secondary soil salinity you have a very high salinity in the region and that is ultimately affecting crop production so you need to reduce irrigation and And so we were looking into that we were looking into the institutions that that are governing Irrigation we were looking into into technologies and economics around those technologies. We will for example We were trying to introduce trees in Or agroforestry in marginal lands, which means lands that were actually used for cotton But were very very salinized and could only produce very low amounts of cotton with very high number very high inputs and So we looked at what we selected local trees we looked at what? What species would grow best we tried to to develop the whole economics of the of the tree production We found basically that if a farmer had Possibility to wait for for seven to ten years until he can harvest the tree. He would have a much better income than from the quacking, for example so We try to develop these things in an interdisciplinary way and and on the way we actually managed to To debunk a few myths about about the region. It's interesting how such regions that that create a lot of interest internationally create also a lot of myth building the misconception conceptions that that Widely dissipated in the media like for Central Asia one of the things Actually, that's the article that was sent around together with the invitation. That's just coming out in a nice book by Michigan State University Where we try to look at those myths for example people think there is a huge water scarcity in the region Well, it's a dry region is it's mostly deserts, but there is a lot of water. It's just being overused People think farmers don't know how to irrigate the farmers are kind of ignorant. They don't know that Lots of water brings a lots of salinity so they're spoiling their land and they don't know it actually we found out by doing a lot of Work with directly with farmers that farmers know very well what's going on, but they have other pressures They react they react to and and lanticidation is not their biggest pressure. It's an important point for us We look at this as Foreigners, but they have different problems because they operate under what's called the state order on on crops like cotton and wheat the government is actually Controlling very much the the production of cotton and the production of wheat because these are crops that are Strategic important the cotton importance the cotton gives the revenues international revenues and so The cotton the farmers get paid for a raw cotton basically below way below a world market price And then the government sells the cotton internationally at of course at what market price So many people see that as a as an exploration of farmers, but what people don't see is that the system also provides a lot of Subsidies at inputs at subsidized price fertilizers actually the whole water supply system is for free right now and so all these subsidies are coming in for farmers and actually make the balance a little bit different and In drought years for example farmers that have run up huge steps Sometimes these steps were just written written off at the end of the year in the system so there's a lot of pros and cons to be said about about such a system and So these are some of the things we tried to correct and I think it was interesting to see that a few if you spend a lot of time in the region you can see a lot of things going on behind the scenes and that are much you get a much deeper understanding of what's going on then what's on the surface and So I Said landscape approach. So the question is what what came out of such a project? In one dimension we had a we had we had a lot of scientific production We used several hundred papers and and PhD studies MSc studies and books on this On on the experience from this work and it's still not finished There's still work that can be that needs to be published and so we're still working on this We had some 40 PhD students in the course of ten years. We had some hundred master students many from Uzbekistan and they have moved on they They gained experience and on the international arena and some have some continued working in the country Some have been going to work World Bank to research institutions abroad and so on So this is a success already, but of course you would like to see a success in the land management that we actually target targeted when we set up the the project and And So what we found out that this this integrated approach, which we tried to do we look at economics look at technologies and in a context Was not something we could We could easily sell to to the local authorities or also to local farmers So what we could do is develop these ideas, you know Is it feasible to to to grow trees? Is it feasible to have conservation agriculture? Is it feasible to? To diversify your crop portfolio and then go out with simple solutions and try to implement those simple solutions But we knew that conservation and culture was working, which is basically a way of reducing machinery input and and Reducing the traffic on on the fields and so on reducing the inputs and So how we how we how do we get this out? And there was one student in the project who was actually farmer son and he took this up. He made a speech D in this and very smart guy He became a consultant on this and he's now running around in that region and actually Bringing out this technology to farmers one of the diversification ideas we had was to bring an indigo, which is a cash crop and So we could show that this could successfully be grown and actually produce Indigo could be produced as a product to be sold which is has a very very high value and So now there is a farmer association around the indigo indigo production We ourselves set up an NGO of scientists So they actually they set them up set it up themselves to be able to To continue with the research after the project was over at the university and and to generate more funds for for research so these things are actually And this is actually my my message From from this whole talk, you know, if you if you want to develop integrated approaches You have to find a way of bringing them back to the people where they can actually Use them and digest them. We knew that the The state system would would not be able to Digest in the integrated approaches. We knew that they had an entry point for alternative technology Technologies in the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources. So we submitted All all these technologies as suggestions to the ministry for them to test them and to try them out So but basically we went we took it all back to simple technologies tree growing conservation agriculture Indigo and stuff like that. So really simple things. We didn't talk about integrated approaches. We didn't talk about, you know Something that sounded really complex and convoluted to them. And so I think that's that's one thing I I think needs to be done. It's it's try to find You develop all this research around Around a complex of questions and then you try to break it down into manageable simple Solutions that that people can work with and the second thing is of course as I mentioned We had these these farmer association and the young student and so on so we need some some champions To to run this when when you're out We were there for ten years, but then the funding stops over here to move on and I think at the end what you need is Opportunities or maybe just locations. I mean in several several things of several of the things we tried we couldn't We couldn't move forward just because there was no uptake no interest We couldn't get a good handle on the institutional on the institutions of the water Distribution system, which was actually crucial, but that was very politically charged So we couldn't get into that and so there were some things we could simply not deal with but still I think we could achieve And we have achieved a great deal And maybe one final message is also this was a 10-year project and still the innovations are not here not yet Not there to be you know, they're not outscaled yet It's starting but it's starting very slowly and this is also maybe a lesson projects of this kind and Bringing innovations into an area takes takes a lot of time and that's something we should keep in mind That's what I wanted to to say. Thank you Thank you very much Christopher. So now the floor is open for questions comments Any questions any comments? Yes, please Thank you Christopher for nice presentation In your paper that you shared with to us about the relevant information from your story It is mentioned about the water quality problem in the area The high use of DDT and this kind of stuff Can you tell us more about this information? Has it any change in terms of the way of farmer Doing some practice in that particular area Thanks Yeah, thank you. It's it's a it's a good question. It's an interesting point DDT was widely used in in the region before in the Soviet Times and There were still stocks there were there were it was delivered by planes onto the field So there were there were these landing strips where all the DDT was stored and so they were basically toxic ground And we knew that in the beginning when we came there people told us don't go there because it's it's it's it's full of DDT DDT they have run out of DDT simply and it's now banned but still there were some stocks They use them up and actually you can buy DDT on a black market, but so there is some use But it's much reduced simply on because of cost cost reasons farmers nowadays They have to be much more economical and then the former state Farms and so the the use of pesticides has has gone down enormously and There were also this is one another one of these myths There was there is always this idea that the arrow seat right out 90% of it is gone So we have a very huge desert and all the DDT was always flowing into that lake So it should be somewhere on this sediment and when you have these dust storms that come up Then they carry the DDT and Intoxicate everybody in the region actually we found that and many people many other studies found that it's not true People are mostly suffering from dust Dust contamination in the air Because it's just so dry and a dust storm raises a lot of Fine particles, but DDT as such is not a problem Anymore not that strong it was there were huge problems with Maternity and childbirth and so on but it's it's now not so strong Thank you any other questions comments Yes, Christine, please Thanks very much and thank you for the talk and I apologize. I didn't read your paper So if I'm asking a question that would have been answered by the paper forgive me You talk about sort of the complexity of integrated approaches and that you need to sort of proceed simply But integrated approaches is what smallholder farmers do all the time and but I You know, so I don't I don't think it's a difficulty with the farmers I think often it's a difficulty with various institutions of the state or your research institutions or whatever I Assume in this area. I mean it was part of the Soviet Union. So I assume they went through long periods of of A sort of destruction of smallholder farmer economies whether through collectivization or through the bringing in of these big Industrial crop production systems. So is there something left of smallholder systems? You know, is there I mean what did people do for a living and do some of them still do sort of more complex Integrated sort of things do they have more more diverse economies at the smallholder level or at the village level and my second question totally totally In in keeping with almost every other question. I've asked Central Asia, certainly Tajikistan and all are known as areas of fantastically high rates of migration and dependence on remittances is that now an issue in Uzbekistan as well and can and does that actually sort of make the economy more essentially more more diverse as well Thank you three very good points You're right Irrigation in that region is not dating back to the Soviet era. It's it's three or four thousand years old These are areas that have been part of the Silk Road So there were always little settlements and then irrigation along the rivers for many for millennia So people and that's actually part of an interesting story because people actually in that region where we worked Which is called Chorazm, which once was a very big autonomous state. Now. It's just a very small District or province of Uzbekistan and there are wonderful cities like Chiva and and others where where you have old heritage sites from from them from them from the Muslim era and so So these people have a lot of experience with irrigation and it was it was hugely increased of course in these state farms and when you had state farms you had a tractor driver you had a Head of the farm and several headman and so on but you had a teacher and you had this and this and that and all These people after independence and many of these Central Asian country countries became actually some of these farms were dissolved And people became small farmers and so the person trained as a tractor driver all of a sudden was a farmer So there was not much of an experience so much of it needed to be built up and actually Uzbekistan had Learned from that experience and at some time in 2008. They they abolished the very very small farms in a little bit brutal manner They just told people they had to merge or otherwise Otherwise do we don't tell you but So but basically that was probably a smart thing to do because some very small farms were just not viable They have a lot of in I mean besides the state-ordered crops They have a lot of small gardens where they produce a lot of wonderful vegetables. They have a wonderful fruit to culture They have many varieties that that can store for for long periods in winter without Cooling just to be in the basement dry and cool. So there is a lot of interesting stuff going on and and a lot of original knowledge that should actually be harvested at some point and preserved So Smallers are back there. That's part of the poverty problem because many of them are on farm And farm so small that they can actually can't make a living And the last so the last question was migration, yeah There are many many Uzbek workers in the Soviet Union working in construction Exporting stuff like melons and so on and I don't have figures on what the part of remittance of the national budget Uzbekistan is economically a very strong country in a way I mean that they rely on cotton a lot, but they're also building up At least the plan is to build up industry. They have gold So remittance since don't play such a large role like in Tajikistan probably, but they certainly play a role It must it must have gone down now with the with the economic crisis also in Russia, but That's just it's a very big part and and many families I Talked to in in this district where we were they had somebody abroad or somebody working in the next big city and somebody working in Russia or Kazakhstan in the oil rigs and so I've got rigs, but they're all production in Kazakhstan Any other comments or questions? Yes, Daniel Thank You Christopher about the indigo. What was the Reason of introducing this species is it just to get rid of the government control in planting? get rid of the control of the government No Because you can't get rid of I mean the government tells you it commands the the growth of cotton down to the Hector so the government knows I mean some government local government officials I know exactly the land they know this farmer owns this Hector So you do cotton here and you do cotton there and so you can't escape that But of course people have their own land and and we were just experimenting with alternative crops for the situation that Cotton, I mean cotton is very strongly depending on the word market and and so some diversification might be Healthy and also healthy for the land for for sustainability And and we try to find crops that could also grow on on marginal on on Salinized lands on sometimes you have remote areas where the irrigation water doesn't get so often so it's it's more Drought agriculture and so I Can't tell you exactly what led to the choice of indigo, but There was some study on what would be suitable for local conditions And then where we would find a local markets indigo currently comes mostly out of India The process of extracting indigo is secret and nobody can nobody tells you what it is We we talked to many textile organizations in Germany. They they all keep mum about this So we try to develop a very crude way of Extracting it which worked and it can probably be refined and so we thought that could give farmers a good market value for the For for the Hector and and so actually if you have three hectares of cotton and half Hector of indigo It might be a viable a viable solution So, you know, you can't you can't turn the system around but you can maybe slowly build in more diversification And and and you know bring back the state order on on land that is really not productive and so on and so slowly Slowly introduce a change that that was the idea behind any sign of being invasive. Sorry invasive Well, nothing is really invasive that depends on irrigation It's it's you know, you're in the middle of big deserts and then you have these irrigated area. So And I don't Never came up. I don't think it was really it would have been a problem Any other comment if not they also have a question Please Okay, I will ask my own question waiting So when when I read the abstract you send I found it This is really an exciting experience Because as you you confirmed in your presentation You try to figure out how to bring this integrative approach that an upscaling and outscaling can happen and As you say one of them is very important is to make simple something which is complex to find champion And also to do capacity building but at the same time and also I like the idea of answering With bottom-up solutions Top-down mistakes to find like getting from down to top But at the same time I think if we want to to take something from this experience Because what happens there is that first some development decision-maker killed Diversity they killed by diversity they introduced the system which was actually maladaptive for the region and then now We are looking for solutions and my question is how can we integrate those approaches in the way that this will not happen? Before it happens that we are looking to solve the issue Is there any way to bring those approaches before that that we don't need to fix the symptom after? after the maladaptive decision-making happened I Mean the the male adaptation is there you You can't not have it because it's there already So you have to find a way of moving from that system into something else and some other countries have made a very very Quick turnover, you know abolished or the state order gave or gave the land out and so on but that also created a lot of problems for Farmer sometimes So the Uzbek government for several reasons is following this small. Let's say top-down approach and But still they realize there are problems They know there are problems. I mean they have half of the RLC So if you know every second foreigner that's coming along is telling them about the RLC and they know it themselves I mean it's not that they ignore it They just probably have different priorities right now, but so Our idea was to to demonstrate ways of of improving the system that That are more rooted in evidence from what's actually going on locally And then build Build build a case for these the conservation culture was a perfect example where we actually in the beginning We had a few fields where we did it on our on some state experimental farms Which where we got some land and then we took farmers then the farmers. Oh, yeah, that's great We want to do this and so that's how it actually started multiplying and Then there was a problem because the government doesn't allow you to not plow. Yeah, so conservation culture in parts relies on plowing and and and the state order relies on very Detailed instructions on when to plow when to fertilize when to irrigate and so on that's by dates Yeah, on 31st of May you do this on 7th of June you do that and so Changing this system then of these of these recommendations in order to be more flexible to Introduce more those technologies is is a challenge in itself One of these and you know, it's it works both ways because also the the international recommendations are sometimes certainly off course The whole question about the water the irrigation of the over irrigation farmers over irrigate because they need to Keep the plants watered because they lose the land if they don't produce the cotton They're supposed to produce so that's when that's why farm when a farmer gets water He puts the water there and and no matter what whether it's salinizing the land He doesn't care because he wants to keep the land and So then what Ben came in and said, yeah, let's do what that's the water pricing Yeah, but farmers are too poor. You can't what you can't give them water price You can't install a water price that is actually covering the costs. So you have to have some water price that is Ridiculous and then what does it actually help then you have to measure the water in order to introduce a price There is no water measuring in place. So you have to build all these little water controlled stations and so there are a lot of Problems that coming from such an idea and at the end you find that what basically the water pricing in that Particular condition doesn't work, but maybe something else would work And and so these are the the ideas we and that's behind the myth Debunking because it's not I mean it's fun and all that but it also has a very serious background because many recommendations Come come from the outside and say you should do this and and then sometimes it's being done in order to show off Oh, we did it and we we we can We can be paid for it, but it's not being done in a way that actually works just to please the foreign donors and that's not Any other comment we have like yeah, I think we have one minute or We start late so No, okay Then thank you very much Christopher for this presentation and this interesting discussion And thank you for everybody for coming today. Thank you very much