Residents of rural areas of the Bukhara region must be employed at all costs, according to Resolution No 503 signed by Hokim (the head of regional administration) Samoidin Husenov. The whole program the administrator came up with comprises two chapters and seventeen parts. Every farmer must employ villagers now (a hired hand per every two hectares of land).

"When a farmer has hired hands, they will do the job on schedule. Farmers, of course, are absolutely free. Hiring hands or not is up to every particular farmer. On the other hand, we do try to explain to farmers that employment of the local population is their duty," Husenov said at his press conference in Bukhara on January 31.

In other words, the state put farmers in charge of what it itself should be seeing to. Farmers are wealthy in civilized countries and anything but in Uzbekistan, in the meantime. Farming is a relatively new phenomenon, and that is why the order issued by the hokim left Bukhara farmers in a state of shock. Hiring people on a permanent basis and paying them all year round is the last thing in the world they need or want because work in the fields in winters is fairly scarce. In the meantime, farmers are supposed to transact money to the pensions fund, pay income tax, and so on.

There are practically no collective farms or their analogs in Uzbekistan nowadays. All land is in farmers' hands. Observers say that farmers cultivate cotton and wheat (mostly the former). All cotton yield is to be sold to the state at 280 sums per kilogram ($1 is an equivalent of 1,240 sums). Moreover, farmers do not even see cash because all money goes directly to the bank where it gets immediately distributed - something is used to pay for fuel, something else for fertilizers, and so on. Some farmers in the meantime claim that the state has never paid them for the last year crop yet.

"I do not need hired hands. We haven't even been paid for 2006. Neither was anything transacted to pay for the fuel. Work in the fields in the meantime ought to begin now, without delay, or the harvest will be a disappointment," a farmer told Ferghana.Ru. "I loaned the money to commence work. If I wait for the state to transact what is due me, I will certainly find myself without anything this year. So, with what money am I supposed to pay permanent hired hands? Or transact something to the pensions fund for using hired hands? Life is hard as it is, and here you are - they invented another problem for us. What I need are part-time hired hands, people who do what I tell them to, get paid, and leave..."

Husenov claims in the meantime that farmers break several laws at once when they hire part-time hands. "First, a hired hand is supposed to have a labor contract and work-book, and the employer is supposed to provide permanent employment. And pay for it, of course. The hired hand will set something aside against old age. Everyone should pay his or her taxes, but not everybody does. That is why we came up with this solution," Husenov explained.

Experts say that there are many more people looking for jobs in Uzbekistan nowadays than people with jobs. They ascribe it to the fact that so many major enterprises were closed down. The enterprises that are still operating pay but a pittance of salary, and this state of affairs compels people to become the mardikors (odd-job men). Few potential employers want to bother with labor contracts and pay something to the pensions fund.

At first sight, what Husenov came up with is a noble idea - employment for people, observance of their rights, and so on. There is only one glitch. The idea encroaches on the rights of farmers. Unable to cope even with their own debts and expenditures, farmers are now expected to see to employment and salaries of others.

Successful introduction of the practice invented by the Bukhara hokim may result in its application nationwide. This region is traditionally a testing site for all sorts of innovations in Uzbekistan.