The emerging small-scale cattle farming sector in Uzbekistan: Highly integrated with crop production but suffering from low productivity

Even two decades after independence in 1991, the agricultural sector of Uzbekistan remains regulated by
the government, prescribing the number of cattle head per agricultural area or imposing mandatory cash
crops. The policy makers are insufficiently informed about the bottlenecks in the different livestock
production units and base their policies mainly on general knowledge. This study analyzed the two major
cattle farm types in the Khorezm province, 56 medium-scale farms (LS; on average 22 ha) and 80
household farms (HH; on average 0.2 ha). While LS farms produced more metabolizable energy and
crude protein than required by their own ruminant livestock, the feeds produced by HH farms covered
only a third of the requirements. Despite their limited farm size, the HH farmers took an active part in the
commercial farming sector, for example, through the purchase of inputs for cattle and crop production,
and product sales. The HH farms generated higher relative crop yields than their LS counterparts, while
cattle productivity of both was comparable, albeit low. The present findings can be considered as a
benchmark for monitoring developments in the cattle sector and as a source of information for directing
improvements in feed supply, cattle health and husbandry.