Harvesting continues in the Namangan region. Specialists say that the crop of wheat is disappointing again, way below the last year yield. According to a source in the regional administration, the crop capacity was 60-70 centners a hectare in 2005. This year, however, the farmers who collect 50 centers will have to consider themselves lucky. Because of this state of affairs, every farmer is told to add 10% more to what he is supposed to turn over to the state.

... Combine operators turn up accompanied by representatives of all sorts of administrative bodies and security structures. It is the so called foremen who are in charge of the harvesting, and the farmer himself is not permitted to meddle in anything. But neither is he permitted to leave the field.

"I counted 27 officials of all sorts on my farm when the crop was being harvested," a farmer from the Uichi district said. "That I was fully expected to feed them all - and lavishly - goes without saying."

There is a chronic shortage of combines in the region. Their distribution is the prerogative of the Interior Ministry. It means that the regional top cop (chief of the Regional Directorate of Internal Affairs) decides how many combines are to be sent to what farmer's field and when. This year, the combines only harvested the part of the crops that was to be turned over to the state. All the rest was left right in the field. Farmers were told that machinery would be available again - when state quotas were met.

The chief of the Namangan Regional Directorate of Internal Affairs visited the Uichi district on June 23. He met with some farmers there. Farmers were summoned to individual interviews with the district prosecutor the other day. The prosecutor demanded all invoices concerning how much had been turned over to the state. The choice he offered every farmer was fairly simple: meet the quota and enjoy life or be prepared for a lengthy stay as a guest of the state...

This is not an empty threat. When a farmer of the Pap district (Namangan region) found his wheat field ablaze one day last year, the prime minister allegedly gave the order to jail him immediately. This correspondent cannot say if it really happened, but sources in the Namangan regional administration claim that it did.

In other words, Uzbek farmers are never left alone by district administrations and security structures. The heads of all sorts of budget organizations, directors of kindergartens, and principals of schools "attached" to farms find life hard too. They are heartily sick of never-ending party-line conferences at local administrations.

A businesswoman from the Naryn district says that the district khokim [head of the administration] who used to be the Uchkurgan district prosecutor once never hesitates to curse whoever is present at a conference, women included, and even to use his fists.

A farmer says that not all of them were paid by the state for the last year cotton. These farmers are therefore unable to buy fertilizers and insecticides.

Before getting paid, farmers are supposed to provide certificates and documents from all sorts of state structures like the local sanitary-and-epidemiologic institution. And these latter never issue certificates or whatever before they find money on their bank accounts for the issuance of the documents. The circle closes.

The impression is that local leaders are doing their honest best to make farmers wish they became someone else in the first place. Not a single sphere of activities exists where farmer is absolutely free. He cannot even use the field where wheat has already been harvested. Orders from high places are explicit: the land should be plowed and given rest until next April. In the meantime, land has always been plowed in late autumn. Consequences of this decision are predictably bad: the fields that were plowed last summer produced disappointing crops of cotton this year. No wonder the Uzbek proverb states "Yer haidasang kuz haida, kuz haidamasang yuz haida" or "Plow the land in autumn, or it will be a waste of time no matter how often you plow it". The soil needs rest in winter only.