Photo: Press Service of the Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan has harvested 4.63 million tons of raw cotton, reaching 103% of its production target, the press service of the Ministry of Agriculture announced on October 22.
The harvesting campaign remains in full swing across the country's cotton fields, with more than 49,000 hectares having completed only the first picking pass, the ministry added.
As President Shavkat Mirziyoyev noted, harvesting in Uzbekistan used to drag on until late December.
“Previously, cotton picking would begin on October 1 and wouldn't even conclude by December 20. Operational headquarters met every evening to discuss plans for the next day,” he recalled on October 21 during a meeting with entrepreneurs and investors in the Kashkadarya region.
Cotton is traditionally picked in three passes:
- early in the harvest season, when the largest share of bolls opens and raw cotton yields and quality hit their peak;
- roughly ten days after the first pass, when harvested volumes remain relatively high;
- a final sweep through the fields, when the quantity and quality of remaining cotton decline considerably.
However, that sequence primarily applies to manual picking, which dominated the Uzbek cotton sector for decades. According to authorities, manual labor in cotton picking has dropped by 44% over the past five years. The Ministry of Agriculture reported that more than 3.5 million tons of cotton were gathered mechanically this season. Roughly 3,000 cotton harvesters entered the fields—triple the fleet deployed a year earlier.
Regional mechanization rates now range from 61% to 98.5%, averaging 76% nationwide. In the Jizzakh region, machines harvested 98.5% of the crop, compared to 94.2% in Syrdarya and 81.2% in the Tashkent region.
Several agricultural enterprises are now yielding 8 to 9 tons per hectare by adopting Chinese farming technologies. Officials expect national average yields to climb to 6 to 7 tons per hectare. By comparison, average yields stood at 2.34 tons per hectare in 2016 and reached 4.6 tons in 2025.
▪️ In March 2020, the president signed a decree abolishing the state order for raw cotton production starting with that year's harvest. The former state procurement system gave way to direct contracts with cotton-textile clusters, while growers gained access to commodity exchange trading.
Nevertheless, indicative targets and contracted production quotas remain in place across the sector. For 2026, the target was set at 4.5 million tons of raw cotton.
