Land Reform In Turkmenistan: Does It Work?

Abstract

Turkmenistan is one of the 25 former socialist countries in Europe and Central Asia that embarked on a transition from plan to market in the early 1990s. In agriculture, the transition was expected to improve the productivity of the chronically inefficient collective farming inherited from the Soviet era. Improvements were to be achieved through the transfer of land and assets from collective farms to individual operators, in line with the established practice of agriculture in market economies.  This study examines the progress of agricultural reform in Turkmenistan by focusing on land distribution, farm structure transformation, and changes in production patterns, marketing, and farm performance. The study is based on a survey of 143 private farmers conducted in Turkmenistan in 2000. Preliminary results indicate that, despite fairly generous allocation of land to individual farming, no significant performance improvements have been achieved so far, primarily because private farmers operate under severe environmental, institutional and political constraints.