The countries most commonly grouped as “Central Asia"include Kazakhstan (KAZ), Kyrgyzstan (KGZ), Tajikistan (TJK),Turkmenistan (TKM), and Uzbekistan (UZB). They share many environmental and agricultural features with bordering areas in Afghanistan (AFG), China (CHN),Iran (IRN), and Russia (RUS) (figure 5.4), as well as Mongolia and Pakistan.

Figure 5.4. General setting and topography of Central Asia

Note: AFG: Afghanistan; CHN: China;IRN: Iran; KAZ: Kazakhstan;KGZ: Kyrgyzstan; RUS: Russia;TJK: Tajikistan; TKM: Turkmenistan; and UZB: Uzbekistan.Blue dots indicate major dams.The major water bodies are two lakes: the CaspianSea (west) and the Aral Sea on the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan,represented by its maximum extent. Based on ETOPO1 data (NOAA, 2016).

The five countries range considerably in size and population, as well as—but less so—in agricultural statistics (see table 5.3). Kazakhstanwith 2.7 million km²is the 8th largest country in the world, with an area about 6 times that of Turkmenistan or Uzbekistan and fifteen times the size of Kyrgyzstan (190,000km²) or Tajikistan (143,000km²). The most populated country in the region is Uzbekistan, where the population density of 70persons/km² is still comparable with Tajikistan (61 persons/km²) but ten timeslarger than that for Kazakhstan. All five countries are predominantly agricultural with up to 50 percent of employment in that sector, supplying about one fifth of the countries’ GDP (less so in Kazakhstan, due to a large energy sector). In the region as a whole, cotton and wheat are the major crops,contributing to the countries’ GDP next to mineral resources such as oil and gas (in Kazakhstan, in addition to wheat), gold (in Kyrgyzstan, together withcotton and tobacco), aluminum (Tajikistan, with cotton and wheat), gas (Turkmenistan,with cotton), and again oil and gas for Uzbekistan (together with cotton, for whichthe country is a leading exporter).

Table 5.3. Basic descriptors ofland, population, economy, and agriculture in Central Asia

Note: Data from FAOSTAT; AQUASTAT 2016; Bucknall et al. 2003;ICG 2005; and USDA 2010. Monthly average wage from UNECE 2016, except for TKMand UZB for which the value was estimated based on the regression of monthlyaverage wage against IMF 2016 gross domestic product (at purchasing powerparity) per capita, i.e., the purchasing power parity (PPP) in other CEIcountries.

Agriculture in the region has undergone severe stress due toenvironmental conditions and the socio-economic changes associated with thesplit of the Soviet Union, which used to have large-scale collective and statefarms coexisting with private household plots. After the early 1990s, a newcategory of mid-sized peasant farms and "farmers" has developed, leadingto rapidly changing demand for agricultural commodities and traditional tradepartners in the region and beyond. Most of the countries are currently tryingto diversify away from cotton monoculture, a crop associated with a lot ofsocial tensions and environmental problems, including the environmental andpublic health disaster related to lake called the Aral Sea (IGC, 2005).

Over the last four or five decades, the Aral Sea has lostthree quarters of its volume due to the use of water for cotton irrigation. Thewater supply of the Aral basin depends on rainfall in remote mountain areasthrough the Syr Darya, which flows from the melting of the Tien Shan glaciersin Kyrgyzstan, and the Amu Darya, which originates in the Pamir mountains ofnorthern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan (Figure 5.4 and Eric, 2012). Today,the Aral Sea is down to several small lakes, and its shrinking has beenreferred to as the “most notorious ecological catastrophe of human making” withthe area nicknamed the “dustiest place on earth.” The Sea is now also a majorsource of toxic dust and affects an area that far exceeds its immediatesurroundings (Giles 2005; Oceanworld 2016).

Irrigation has not only been a problem for the Aral Sea, butin general irrigation infrastructure in the Central Asia region has beendeteriorating rapidly; in Uzbekistan for example, 70 percent of water is lost.Some estimates put the cost of the rehabilitation of the irrigation system at40 billion US$ for the region. Due to water logging and salinization, at least10 percent of land has gone out of production over the last decade (ICG 2005).

Even with more efficient and sized down irrigation systems,it is unlikely that the Sea will ever regain its past extent, as policieschange and hydropower increasingly competes with agriculture for waterresources (Dixon 2001, Motamed et al 2013, and LOC 2014). In addition, policiesnow need to be national policies from the different countries, which is muchmore difficult to coordinate than when the area was under Soviet rule. Thiscreates additional stress, particularly in the Fergana Valley region, which issplit between Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The Valley (5 percent ofthe area of Central Asian countries) is a major source of food (wheat, cotton,rice, vegetables, and fruit) for the region, but also concentrates 25 percentof population, resulting in the highest population density in the region with morethan 600 people/km² (Stratfor, 2013).

The post-Soviet recession in the region is now fading due toeconomic restructuring and foreign investment, but monthly average wages arestill low by international standards (as low as US$247 per month in Tajikistan;table 5.3),even if undernourishment is moderate, with values close to or below5 percent (FAO, 2012).

Agricultural environment

With the exception of a few high mountain ranges, most ofthe region suffers a deficit of rainfall over potential evapotranspiration(PET) (figure 5.5), with aridity increasing from north to south along withaverage temperature. Although the region has winter rains, they are mostabundant in areas in the north of Kazakhstan that are usually too cold to growwinter crops. As a result of the aridity, most agricultural land in the smallercountries is irrigated, while in Kazakhstan, which produces little cotton butsizeable amounts of exportable wheat, only 7 percent of the agricultural landis under irrigation. In line with mostly semi-arid climatic conditions,livestock plays a major role in all five countries, and agriculture includestypical drought staples such as millet and sorghum. Figures 5.6a and billustrate the distribution of wheat, barley, and potatoes, as well asirrigated land in the region.

In Kazakhstan, about 75 percent of wheat originates in threenorth-central Oblasts: Kostanai, Akmola, and North Kazakhstan. About 12 millionhectares are cultivated with spring wheat, while only 1 million hectares—mostlyconfined to southern Kazakhstan—are used for winter wheat (about 5 percent ofthe output). Spring grain (also including oats and barley, an important crop inthe region) is sown under low input conditions in mid-May to early June, to beharvested from late August to October (Abugalieva and Peña 2010, USDA 2010,Wikipedia). In the southern countries, wheat and barley are cultivated asrainfed winter crops (e.g., Khatlon province in south-west Tajikistan). Cotton,tobacco, maize, and rice are grown only as irrigated crops in the southernareas.

As mentioned above, livestock plays a central role in theregion’s extensive cereal-livestock systems (in semi-arid areas) and pastoralfarming systems (in the high elevation areas) (Dixon et al, 2001). As shown in table5.1, permanent pastureland, whether managed or natural, exceeds arable land bya factor 5 or more. Hay and other fodder crops are actually major crops in theregion (also see "feeds" in figure 5.9below). In a report from 2001,observations for the pastoral farming systems are that “Due to excessive animal populations, poorpasture management and overgrazing, deterioration of natural vegetation andsoil erosion are important issues. Wool production, which was a major outputduring the Soviet era, has fallen dramatically since the early 1990s, whilemeat output has increased as farmers have reverted to the sturdy traditionalmeat breeds. Poverty is particularly widespread in this (pastoral) system.”(Dixon et al, 2001.)