Kyrgyzstan's Jalal-Abad province is facing severe scarcity of labourers for harvesting cotton. A majority of the domestic labourers have moved to other regions, but even the Oblast State Administration is not able to present any specific data as regards the number of such workers who have migrated.
A larger part of the arable lands is in possession of private farmers and they do not plough these fields themselves, rather employ labourers to carry out the task.
Previously, they used to engage villagers from Uzbek villages nearing the border, who assisted them with the work of harvesting cotton, but this year as the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border has been sealed, those workers from Uzbekistan cannot access Kyrgyzstan.
By now, harvesting of cotton crop from 11,300 hectares of fields out of the total 14,500 hectares has been completed.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India