After a decade of decline in the number of people suffering from hunger, in 2015 the indicators of hungry began to grow again. According to UN estimates, almost 690 million people, or 8.9 percent of the world’s population, are hungry in the world. This is 10 million more people than last year, and 60 million up from figures five years ago.
Goal 2 of the global development agenda until 2030 involves solving a number of specific tasks. These include: ensuring everyone has access to safe and nutritious food, ending all forms of malnutrition, doubling agricultural productivity and ensuring the creation of sustainable food systems.
In Turkmenistan, efforts to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 2 are focused on two areas: promoting rational nutrition and ensuring food security and sustainable agricultural development, the Neutral Turkmenistan newspaper writes.
Since February 2020, the “National Program for healthy nutrition of the population of Turkmenistan for 2020-2025” has been operating in the country. The measures taken under the program have achieved good results on a number of indicators. In particular, there is a tendency to decrease stunting in children under 5 years of age and the prevalence of obesity.
Ensuring food security and sustainable development of agriculture is the second direction of state policy within the framework of Goal 2. In line with the implemented agrarian policy, the Government of Turkmenistan is taking a number of measures, including:
- support of domestic producers of agricultural products by providing subsidies, loans and tax benefits.
- development of the export potential of agricultural products
- substitution of imports with locally produced products
- expansion of export potential.
- Construction of livestock complexes, greenhouses, flour mills, enterprises for the production of a wide range of products of the food industry.
To support private poultry and egg producers, the Government of Turkmenistan has stimulated the cultivation of feed grains, corn and soybeans in the country. Since 2019, for the first time, private producers have started production of agricultural products by state order, having received plots from special agricultural land funds. These and other measures have made it possible to increase the share of the non-state sector in the value of agricultural products and reduce market prices.
The country places a high priority on increasing the effectiveness of irrigated agriculture and making wise use of soil resources. The agricultural sector has been shifting in recent years from extensive farming practices (growth of acreage) to intensive ones (improvement in yield). Some of the grain-growing land has been adapted to crops of berries, fruits, vegetables, and potatoes.
A memorandum signed with John Deere Walldorfg GmbH & Co. KG on the introduction of a digital electronic control system in agricultural machinery and equipment in the agricultural sector for the period 2020-2030 will serve the introduction of new technologies.
The development of the agricultural complex will continue within the framework of the Program of the President of Turkmenistan for the socio-economic development of the country in 2022-2028. It provides for the following measures:
- Increasing the production of import-substituting food products and increasing labor productivity in agriculture
- Introduction of the latest technologies and modern production methods
- Expansion of its own seed and feed base
- Introduction of water-saving irrigation technologies
- Development of veterinary services
- Development of agricultural science
- Digitalization of all branches of the agro-industrial complex
- Maintaining the practice of preferential lending in agricultural production. ///nCa, 9 August 2023
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