In the Shurchi district of Surkhandarya region, around 80 farmers were forced onto buses late at night on October 31, 2025, and brought to a “meeting” with regional officials, escorted by police. “Our fault is that we delayed planting wheat,” said the farmer who sent the video from the bus to local media outlet Kun.uz

In the video, local officials in Surkhandarya can be seen ordering tractors to destroy freshly planted onion fields belonging to the local farmer.

“We’ll destroy what you’ve planted anyway. Then we’ll move on to the next field,” one official says in the video. “Even if you spend 100 or 200 million UZS ($8,300–$16,600), go ahead — plant if you like; we’ll still plow it over. It seems words don’t affect you. We’ve had enough of those farmers who planted onions. Because you planted onions, you didn’t meet the cotton quota. The district has 580 hectares of cotton left unplanted.”

Such scenes of administrative coercion, known as the “allocation system” are reminiscent of Soviet-style command agriculture and have become increasingly visible in recent years despite President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s public commitments to liberalizing the agricultural sector.

When Reforms Meet Resistance

Kamoliddin Ikromov, the head of an agribusiness association, described these acts as “agro-terrorism.”

These actions are not limited to Shurchi district. Similar cases are happening in other regions too. “They directly contradict the president’s decrees that allow farmers to decide what to grow on their land. Two presidential decrees in a row gave cotton and wheat farmers the right to use 45 percent of their land for cotton, 45 percent for wheat, and the remaining 10 percent for crops of their choice.”

Ikromov warns that such heavy-handed interference not only undermines reforms but also threatens the country’s food security and market stability. “If onion prices rise to 5,000 UZS per kilo tomorrow, who will be responsible?”, he asks. “Will the same officials who destroyed the crops reimburse the public for higher prices?”

The arbitrary destruction of crops has left farmers demoralized and reluctant to invest in agriculture. “This kind of pressure discourages people from putting money into their farms,” Ikromov explains. The contradiction between the president’s supportive decrees and the coercive behavior of local authorities creates a sense of legal uncertainty and frustration.

Local Corruption and Sabotage

Ikromov attributes the problem to corruption and bureaucratic sabotage at the local level.
“Some officials deliberately delay implementing the 45-45-10 land reform system,” he says. “They then report up the chain of command that farmers are incapable of managing land allocation, which justifies keeping control in their hands. This often happens for corrupt reasons, as deputy governors may redistribute land obligations in exchange for bribes.”

Such manipulation undermines the very idea of decentralization and reform, allowing local elites to maintain power and extract rent from struggling farmers.

A System Stuck in the Past

The Kun.uz article argues that forcing farmers to grow certain crops “for the sake of textile factories or quotas” is economically irrational. “If cotton were not profitable, nobody would grow it. But if it is profitable, farmers will choose to cultivate it voluntarily — not because someone is standing over them.”

As Uzbekistan pushes forward with agricultural reform, such incidents highlight the growing gap between presidential rhetoric and local reality. The contradiction between reform decrees and coercive enforcement reflects a deeper problem: an enduring administrative mindset that treats farmers not as entrepreneurs, but as subordinates to be disciplined.

Until this changes, experts warn, Uzbekistan’s rural economy will remain trapped — not by lack of technology or investment, but by a system that fears giving real freedom to those who feed the nation.

Source: Kun.uz