Geha Foods Evaluation of Irrigation for Processed Tomatoes

the farms with substantial industrial growth generating jobs such as the Geha Food
processing facility. Additional agro-industrial facilities should be encouraged and donor
institutions provide some supporting finances and the government incentives. The alternative
would be to have the surplus personnel effectively expelled as may currently be happening,
with the marginal wages currently afforded by the farm management. The example
mentioned is having farm workers weed cotton in exchange for a delayed in-kind payment of
the residual cotton stalks after harvest which they can use for fuel in their homes, but not
consume. Meanwhile, they grow increasingly in debt and may have to forfeit there lease
certificates to cover their debt. The result would be in consolidation of ownership, possibly
into the various farm chairmen, and displacement of shareholder/laborers. The consolidation
of ownership will improve the overall agriculture efficiency, but could cause severe problems
in the cities like Dushanbe if displaced farm families migrate to the cities looking for any
opportunity. Meanwhile, the farm shareholder/laborers manage to survive on their private
plots which were intended as supplemental income instead of primary income. The result is a
very difficult, arduous life style, which can only result in reduced life expediency (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3. Small Child pressed to work bringing fodder home as
part of arduous lifestyle of rural Tajikistan.
Until such time as an out migration from the farms can congenial be managed, it will be very
difficult to modify the labor intensive farming system, including the manually managed
furrows of the irrigation system. Labor is viewed as job security, even when providing an
impoverished livelihood. The labor intensity appears on par with most highly subsistent
developing countries and levels not seen in the USA or Europe for 70 years or more, as noted
by the four stage wheat harvest that involves (Fig. 4):
• cutting & windrowing with a combine,
• stacking,
• threshing and winnowing, and
• hauling the crop from the field.
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