Uzbekistan

Farmers in Navbahor district of Navoi region have accused local authorities of forcibly seizing agricultural land, destroying productive wheat fields shortly before harvest, and pressuring farmers to surrender plots obtained through legal auctions and long-term lease agreements.

Russian authorities are considering a proposal to provide land plots for livestock projects involving Uzbek investors, through which agricultural products produced in the Irkutsk region could be supplied to local Russian markets as well as exported to Uzbekistan

Under the proposed rules, foreigners will no longer be able to acquire land through auctions, as access to agricultural land will be limited to secondary lease agreements arranged through regional authorities, and only for projects with a minimum investment of $10 million.

The Uzbek enterprises Asl Yuksalish Savdo and Muborak qorako‘lchilik have acquired 4,000 hectares of farmland in Belarus on a long-term lease for a large-scale project that involves the raising of 1,000 head of cattle in an initial stage.

Uzbekistan's Kashkadarya Region plans to deepen cooperation with Belarus' Vitebsk Region in the field of food security and launch a major beef production project, the Head of the Department of Investments, Industry, and Trade of Uzbekistan's Kashkadarya Regional Administration, Shahrier Toshmurod Khamzaev, announced.

A wave of land disputes that began in eastern Uzbekistan has spread to Sirdaryo, where farmers say authorities are using courts, debt enforcement, and administrative pressure to shift farmland into a system that favors foreign, particularly Chinese, investors.

The project envisions cultivating sugar beets on about 52,000 hectares that Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Agriculture has already designated in the Gallaorol and Farish districts for sugar beet cultivation.

Tensions are rising in Uzbekistan's Andijan region: farmers say they are being coerced into "voluntarily" handing over their land to local authorities. Many believe the plots will subsequently be given to Chinese investors

Farmers in Uzbekistan say the government is forcing them to surrender land to Chinese businesses under the guise of state-backed development, taking thousands of hectares of fertile cotton and wheat fields out of the hands of locals.

On April 3, 89 civil society organizations signed a joint statement calling on the IFC and the EBRD to ensure remedy and accountability, for the severe and systemic violations at Indorama Agro cotton project, Uzbekistan. In 2019, a presidential decree allocating 50,000 hectares of land to Indorama Agro resulted in the arbitrary termination of thousands of farmers’ land leases without free, prior and informed consent.

Despite persistent rumors, only 4% of Chinese investment in Uzbekistan goes into agriculture. Foreign investors cannot purchase land, it can only be leased for a maximum of 25 years through open auctions.

A new report on land grabbing exposes the vulnerability of farmers and citizens to arbitrary abuse of the law when developers and the state lay claim to their farms and homes for commercial gain.