Page 64 - bnemagazine bne_December 2021_20211203.pdf

64 I Eurasia bne December 2021
Climate change ‘destroying honey production in Kyrgyzstan’
bne IntelIiNews
Climate change, with the consequent loss of glacier meltwater, threatens to destroy the beekeeping sector of Kyrgyzstan, considered the best in the world in terms of honey quality.
The issue was investigated by State of the Planet, the news site of Columbia Climate School. It noted how on the second day of the ongoing COP 26 climate change summit in Glasgow, Kyrgyz leader Sadyr Japarov made an ambitious statement in the framework of the Paris Agreement on climate change, asking for help from international organisations. He also reportedly mentioned glacier issues in Kyrgyzstan, with small glaciers in the Central Asian country in danger of disappearing by 2050. The loss of glaciers is said to be having
a devastating effect on farmers in the region, with reduced irrigation water supplies undermining the growth of pastures.
In the 1990s, 12,000 honey farms were producing more than 10,000 tonnes of honey in Kyrgyzstan. But the number of beekeepers has deteriorated to a low of around 1,000, which produce only around 3,000 tonnes of honey a year.
State of the Planet talked to Taalaibek Saatov, a 60-year-old farmer who has been beekeeping for four years on the slopes of the Sary-Uzen Chui region, with its rivers fed by glacier meltwater. It is becoming more and more difficult for Saatov to harvest from about 20 beehives, primarily due to climate change, it reported.
Field flowers 'withered'
“Spring was very late in the Chui region this year, and as soon as the bees needed the flowers, the weather passed 30 degrees Celsius, and all the field flowers withered. Since May 2021, it has rained not more than four times. My bees suffered from such extreme and unusual climatic conditions,” Taalaibek was quoted as saying
In addition, Taalaibek was reported as observing, farmers were using uncontrolled pesticides to increase crop yields. Those applied to the fields in May and June led to mass extinctions of his bees.
Kyrgyzstan has a unique geography with vast high-mountain pastures covered with a variety of honey-bearing plants. The country’s honey has been recognised at international festivals worldwide as the best quality organic honey.
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littered with metal components, material and equipment and the new silo tower soars overhead, cloaked in scaffolding and cranes and busy with men working on the structure. It is already more than three-quarters completed and looks oddly out of place with its slick coat
of paint and obvious shinny newness compared to the surrounding buildings that have been battered by desert weather for decades.
The ebullient director proudly tells bne IntelliNews that the company is funding 81% of the investment from its retained earnings and the rest has been taken as commercial loans from Uzbek banks.
“In 1994 we had to close down one of the three lines, as there was no demand,” says Salomov. “Today we can’t produce enough and even after the new line goes into action we will be working at full capacity. You can feel the difference in the country.”
Qizilqumsement business has been freed and transformed. Once a key part of
the command economy, its status was little changed during the administration of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s first president, who maintained a more or less centrally controlled economy.
What has changed since Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev took over in 2016
is not any specific sweeping reform other than the plant is allow to run its own affairs and manage its own funds, despite the fact that it remains largely state-owned.
Nevertheless, Uzbekistan’s cement deficit is a strategic and balance of payments problem for the country and Qizilqumsement’s investment project to boost production is one of a dozen going on at smaller plants in the country. Uzbekistan’s total cement output is around 19mn tpy, but the demand is currently some 24mn tpy. The new projects are expected to close the gap next year and make the country self- sufficient in cement.
Reorganisation and privatisation
Freeing up companies to be in charge of their own business has been the most