Julia Eckert, Georg Elwert (1996):
Land Tenure in Uzbekistan

2. Forms of land rights

Five forms of land rights can be distinguished: The shareholding ("Aktie"), the lease ("Shirkat), the private farm (Dehkhan"), the garden plot ("Jarak") and the family houses ("Ui Haule").

High hopes are put on the Dehkhans, which seem to be justified by the success in productivity and the high yields of existing Dehkhans. 330 000 ha land have been distributed to 14 000 Dehkhan farmers; 145 000 ha are supposed to be distributed in the coming months. [FN 27]

Table 2: Land-data [FN 28]

2.1 Mio ha or 5.7 % are missing unexplained in these statistics.

Nevertheless the founding of new Dehkhans is a slow process. The agricultural ministry as well as local administrations assumed, that everybody who wanted land had received land. In 58 % of talks with local administrations, the persons in charge of the distribution said that every applicant had obtained private land. Only in 20 % of our cases did the administration admit that there was not enough land to give Dehkhans to all those who wanted to found one. 7% of the interviewees even said there was not enough land to give a Dehkhan to anybody. The others saw a lack of qualified applicants. The dominant explanation given was that many people did not want land because the socialist mentality, which shrank from self-reliance and initiative, was still prevailing. This would explain the slow implementation of the land reform. The dependent mentality, the lack of knowledge of independent / self-reliant management and of adapted (small scale) technology are the main reasons given by the administrative bodies for the small numbers of new Dehkhans. [FN 30]

However, our data from interviews with peasants as well as foreign experts and scientists do not confirm this assumption. In fact there is some experience in self-organised farming and to a lesser extend even in marketing. The "Ui Haule", the yards around the family houses of the rural population have always been intensively cultivated and the surplus production sold on the local bazaars. Private bazaars have existed in Uzbekistan for a long time. But the yards do not serve as a model for private farming which could be expanded on. [FN 31] They do not demand the same level of management skills, marketing opportunities and technical expertise as full time private farming. Indeed, the farmers express a lack of experience in management, accounting, generally in small scale agriculture and specific agricultural questions which formerly were delegated to specialists employed by the kolkhozes and sovkhozes. The farmers and agricultural workers are aware of this deficit and express a great interest in overcoming it through training. [FN 32] Training should forgo or at least accompany the founding of a private farm. Preferably it should be available while the farmer is still only a leasing tenant. [FN 33] The Shirkat lease is seen as a low risk opportunity to train for future private farming. [FN 34]

This attitude is widespread and does not indicate a lack of self-reliance or a deficient "mentality". Rather it represents a realistic estimation on the farmers side of their own abilities and knowledge. They consider it their own responsibility to achieve economic success. [FN 35] In this respect the farmers express no expectations towards the state. Nobody speaks of wanting to leave administrative or management tasks in the hands of the government institutions. The state is expected to create a favourable environment for private enterprise, especially private farmers. Its main task is to guarantee security and stability. [FN 36] Additionally, basic services such as training facilities should be provided or at least supported by the state. [FN 37]

There are agricultural workers who do not see a possibility to found their own private farm, because they feel they could neither cope with the administrative and management tasks nor afford the initial investment. [FN 38] Our interviews estimate the percentage of those who do not want to found their own private farm at 35 % of the people currently working in agriculture. 45 % were interested but still waiting to gain experience, to save money or to observe the course of economic development ; 20 % were determined to found their own farm or had done so already. This would mean that there are between 20 % and 65 % potential private farmers. This constitutes 12 up to 39 % of the population, a number which is well above the government target of 5 - 10 %.

Which form of privatisation will dominate and how much of each form will be allowed in a certain district is mainly decided by the Hokhim and the chairman of the kolkhoz. The Hokhimiats currently seem to favour the Shirkat-system while the kolkhoz administration prefer the shareholdings. This is understandable if you consider that, within the shareholdings, the position of chairman of the kolkhoz is hardly changed. His powers might even be expanded as he will be more independent from the state but still with equal powers within the kolkhoz. Likewise the Hokhims might prefer the Shirkat system since it resembles the directives by the ministry of agriculture more closely. The Hokhims can, thus, present themselves as reform minded and show convincing results.