TAJIKISTAN - FOOD SECURITY TAKES CENTER STAGE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 DUSHANBE 001267

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE

DEPARTMENT FOR SCA/CEN

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON PGOV PHUM EAID TI
SUBJECT: TAJIKISTAN - FOOD SECURITY TAKES CENTER STAGE


1. (U) This message is sensitive but unclassified. Please protect
accordingly.


2. (SBU) Summary: Food security in Tajikistan likely will continue
to decline, and the inability of many Tajiks to buy sufficient food
likely will worsen in the coming winter. President Rahmon is
calling for more food aid, and decrying the high price of food
worldwide and its impact on highly food-insecure and
import-dependent Tajikistan. The Government is not coordinating
effectively with the donor community on strengthening food security,
however, and the President continues to pursue policies that prevent
increased food production in Tajikistan. End Summary.



3. (U) President Rahmon has begun to call attention to the looming
food crisis in Tajikistan. In his remarks at the UN General
Assembly he noted that food insecurity had "seriously affected" two
thirds of families in Tajikistan. He predicted the upcoming winter
in Tajikistan would be more difficult than the past severe winter.
Rahmon blamed climate change (for reducing water supplies and
agricultural output) and world food prices, for the inability of
many rural Tajiks to buy sufficient food.


4. (SBU) USAID partners and the World Food Program report that food
insecurity - the inability of Tajiks to afford to feed themselves
properly - this coming winter will be worse than last winter. World
Food Program surveys throughout Tajikistan found that 37 percent of
urban Tajiks and 34 percent of rural Tajiks were food-insecure.
About one-third of the rural food-insecure, and two-fifths of the
urban food-insecure are in the category of severely food-insecure,
unable to afford to feed themselves on a basic food basket of wheat,
oil, and sugar.


5. (SBU) Three main factors contribute to the worsening
food-security situation. First, despite pronouncement to the
contrary, the Government in many regions discourages crop
diversification away from cotton. Farmers forced to grow cotton are
driven further into debt by the artificially low prices they are
forced to accept for their cotton, in order that cotton investors
continue to reap profits. With low incomes and no options to
diversify, farmers must sell what assets they have to buy food, in a
downward financial spiral of increasing debt and hunger. Second,
Tajikistan is highly vulnerable to increasing world food prices and
energy, because of its dependence on food imports. Food prices in
Tajikistan have doubled since late 2007.

DROUGHT AND A HANGOVER FROM LAST WINTER


6. (SBU) Third, last winter was unusually cold, with significant
power disruptions throughout the country, and was then followed by a
severe drought. Precipitation levels in 2008 are less than half
their historic average throughout the country. Crops were damaged
by the weather, and overall food security declined. Food-insecure
Tajiks are going into this coming winter in a weaker financial
state, with more debt and fewer assets to sell to buy food.
Increasing unemployment has made lower-income Tajiks more dependent
on remittances and assistance from family members in Russia or on
the generosity of neighbors.

LACK OF COORDINATION


7. (SBU) The World Food Program (WFP) chairs a Food Security Working
Group combining most international donors, with the Government of
Tajikistan invited. Emboff met with WFP's food security specialist,
Cedric Charpentier (protect). He said the Government of Tajikistan
rarely sent a representative to the Food Security Group, which meets
Qrarely sent a representative to the Food Security Group, which meets
twice a month. WFP reported information on food security and donor
activities to the Ministry of Trade and Economy (which is charged
with coordinating GOTI efforts to mitigate winter food and energy
shortages),but received no information in return that would allow
it to judge whether donor activity was coordinated with Government
relief efforts.

LACK OF TRUST


8. (SBU) Charpentier also questioned food security survey
information from the Government. He noted that in the past,
Government food production figures simply echoed the Government's
own public production targets, and bore little relation to reality.
USAID partner Mercy Corps' Director Brandy Westerman (protect) and
WFP's Charpentier both commented that they could not get any sense
of the extent of GOTI food and fuel relief efforts during the
unusually harsh past winter, making them skeptical of Government
claims to be prepared for the coming winter.


9. (SBU) For the Government view, Emboff met with Minister of
Economy and Trade Bobozoda, on September 30. He said the GOTI was

DUSHANBE 00001267 002 OF 002


stockpiling wheat flour and fuel, and was ensuring that local
governments around the country had stockpiled coal to heat hospitals
and schools. He said the GOTI had successfully distributed
generators and other relief supplies donated by foreign countries
last winter. Bobozoda said he wanted to see better coordination
between the Government and foreign donors and NGOs, and worried that
certain NGOs focused too much on specific regions to the detriment
of overall relief efforts.


10. (SBU) The Embassy, like WFP, is skeptical of Government claims
on its preparations for the winter, because of lack of specifics,
lack of observed results last winter, and deceptive information
about related measures to help farmers. As noted in other
reporting, official claims about freedom to farm consistently are
contradicted at the local level, where coercion to farm cotton
remains a firmly entrenched practice. When USAID representatives
met with farmers in Shartuz district recently, the farmers
complained that they were required to devote 75% of their land to
cotton, could not find markets for food crops (they noted that food
processing industries existed in the region during the Soviet Union,
but they had fallen into disrepair and no longer functioned),and
were worried about being able to afford food in the coming winter.
A local government representative at the meeting dismissed their
worries; the farmers in turn dismissed his assurances, noting that
the local government was preventing cotton farmers from removing
cotton stalks to plant winter wheat, in hopes of squeezing a little
more out of this year's cotton crop.

COMMENT - BLAMING EVERYONE BUT HIMSELF


11. (SBU) Rahmon used his UNGA speech and various meetings with
foreign officials to draw attention to Tajikistan's need for food
assistance, and this effort is welcome in so far as it helps focus
attention on the country's serious and worsening economic problems.
But it does not represent a major departure from the GOTI's usual
state of denial; Rahmon blamed the food security crisis on the
weather and on world prices, with no acknowledgement of his own
culpability in slowing land reform and perpetuating cotton
monoculture to benefit a few friends - while a large part of the
population literally goes hungry. The most imaginative thing Rahmon
has done in response to increasing hunger has been to dispatch gifts
of food to 3,000 needy families, identified by local authorities.


12. (SBU) Increasing food insecurity has not reached the point where
rural Tajiks are fleeing their homes in search of food, but it has
gotten the attention of the President as an issue which could be
used against him, and therefore a threat to his grip on power.
Tajikistan will need significant international relief efforts this
coming winter, and continued long term assistance to build its
agricultural capacity and reform its agricultural and trade
policies.