Tajikistan—Feed the Future Agriculture and Land Governance (ALG)

For more than a decade, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has supported Tajikistan’s agriculture-led economic growth and improved nutrition outcomes in Khatlon. Now the Feed the Future Tajikistan Agriculture and Land Governance (ALG) activity moves beyond these previous investments to catalyze growth by enabling the local private sector to develop and expand market opportunities and work with government and civil society to drive systemic reforms in the enabling environment for agriculture that allow smallholders and private sector firms to invest and upgrade land through improved registration and administration. Of equal importance, ALG ensures that women, youth, and vulnerable groups in remote areas in Khatlon are not left behind in the climb, integrating them into market-led opportunities in processing, value addition, and livelihood diversification while deepening their resilience through nutrition-sensitive crop adoption and behavior change. Combined, these efforts will enable Tajikistan to strengthen its journey to self-reliance and reduce its over-reliance on remittances from neighboring Russia.

ALG assists the Government of Tajikistan to sustainably reduce hunger, undernutrition, and poverty among smallholder farmers by developing more productive and efficient agriculture systems, building the resilience of smallholders, and improving the enabling environment to facilitate sustainable and long-term, ag-led growth. It supports the USAID Global Food Security Strategy’s top-line goals of accelerated agriculture-led growth, better nutritional outcomes, improved food security, land tenure security, greater resilience, and better water security.

Sample Activities

• Design an inclusive partnership facility to provide competitive performance-based grants, subcontracts, and technical assistance.
• Increase productivity, post-harvest handling, and storage, and expand access to markets of existing and newly organized value chains.
• Increase availability and consumption of diverse and nutritious foods.
• Improve adaptation to and recovery from shocks and stresses through diversification of livelihoods.
• Support extension services that address natural resource constraints.

Select Results

• Hosted, with local agricultural input supplier partners, 13 Farmer Field Day training events for 1,000 local farmers. This private sector-led approach for extension services directly engages local input suppliers to provide practical, field-based training. Farmers received information on new products, cultivation techniques, and supplier services, including a discount voucher.
• Held 19 training sessions for 165 community agriculture volunteers—92 women and 73 men—who will carry out activities in their villages across 12 districts. Training covered adult learning; community mobilization; the work of a volunteer; water, sanitation, and hygiene; and home garden management topics.
• Supported the National Valuation Standards for land, establishing basic principles of valuation and requirements for assessing the value of movable and immovable property. Upholding national standards for land valuation is a critical step in establishing a fair market price for land use rights once the right of alienation is adopted.
• Held a training of trainers to expand home garden management skills on at-home seedling production for 144 community agriculture volunteers. The volunteers will share these techniques and skills with members of their communities through home visits and group sessions at their own home garden demonstration plots.
• Signed a follow-on grant agreement with Kota Global to provide professional sewing and paid on-the-job training to 100 vulnerable women and young people in Khatlon. Graduates will receive vocational certificates and after completing the training, Kota Global has committed to offering at least 75 percent of the successful graduates full-time employment in its factory in Bokhtar.
• Supported micro-deposit organization HUMO to launch the Agency Banking Model in 2022, which has established 200 agent banking points across 12 districts. This model has improved rural access to finance by providing remote banking to more than 150,000 clients and facilitating more than 1 million transactions worth $12.8 million.