Cotton harvesting begins in Turkmenistan

29 Aug '12

2 min read

Aiming to enhance its output of cotton, a major revenue generating crop, Turkmenistan has launched its cotton-harvesting campaign in a grand style.

As stated by the Agriculture Ministry, slightly above its last year’s output of 1.1 million tons, the country aims to reap 1.109 million tons of cotton from its total cultivated area of 550,000 hectares this year. The harvesting season would go on till October.

The area cultivated is almost over double the size of Luxembourg.

Turkmenistan, which positions itself amongst the world’s seven leading cotton producing nations, now retains around 80 percent of the cotton it produces for domestic use, which is far more than a meagre three percent share that it retained while it was a part of the Soviet Union.

Since becoming an independent nation in 1991, the Central Asian country has invested over US$ 1.3 billion in cotton processing, and aims to further invest around US$ 2 billion by 2020.

The country has strictly prohibited employment of child labour in cotton harvesting. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov has issued a Presidential decree which specifically imposes a ban on child labour.

As noted by the US Government's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour in its 2011 Human Rights Report, the Turkmenistan Government has efficiently implemented the labour code’s section banning child labour.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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