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Azerbaijan’s cotton industry has re-emerged as a way for the government to diversify its economy away from oil and gas. But climate change is making life in the fields tougher than ever for workers. CNA explores their plight in the last of a series in the run-up to COP29.
Women do hard labour in cotton fields throughout Azerbaijan. (Photo: CNA/Jack Board)
11 Nov 2024 06:00AM (Updated: 11 Nov 2024 07:12AM)
BAKU, Azerbaijan: On the dusty outskirts of the city of Imishli in central Azerbaijan, a large statue looms over an anonymous T-junction.
A female figure, adorned with fading white paint, grips a broad bundle of cotton. Behind is an expansive frieze, depicting dozens of figures, mostly women, in valiant poses.
They are the “white gold” heroes.
Cotton workers, long-standing cogs behind a powerhouse regional industry, hold an esteemed place in local lore.
But the realities of life these days in the fields that stretch out throughout this rural district, and the wider central region of Azerbaijan, are not so resplendent.
In some of them, progress appears to have stalled long ago, back in Soviet Union times. Women in their 50s and 60s, their faces hidden by colourful shawls, swing heavy hoes into parched soil.
Their spines are curved from years of squatting on haunches to pluck weeds from struggling rows of cotton bushes, a high sun inflicting temperatures in the mid-30s degrees Celsius.
Unstable economics and the grip of poverty in rural areas have kept these women in hard manual labour. And turbulence driven by climate change has made their jobs more difficult than ever.
“God help those who plant the cotton,” said Ms Mehpara Asadova, a 58-year-old veteran of the cotton fields.
“We come and earn 15 manats (US$9) from here and in this way we pay for electricity and gas. But with that, we cannot afford to buy meat to eat. We barely manage to make ends meet. That is how it is,” she said.
Research in 2019 by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that Azerbaijan’s “agricultural labourers are mostly from landless, rural households and predominantly women”. In a survey, it found that the share of women in cotton farming workforces was 80 per cent or higher.
“Believe me, there are women in the field who faint out of exhaustion. What can they do? They have no choice but to come and work. They are in need; they work out of desperation,” Ms Asadova said.
Agriculture in the region and globally is facing a reckoning – impeded by rising temperatures, unpredictable rain, water shortages for irrigation and increasing production costs.
Amid those challenges, Azerbaijan is intent on making agriculture a central pillar of its economy once again, riding the possibilities offered by new technology and sustainable crop solutions.
But many parts of the industry remain caught in the past and in need of innovation. Farmers told CNA that they are struggling, their workers are ageing and agitated and powerful entities hold a tight monopoly on the entire cotton value chain.
Following a dip in production since the 1990s, the government re-launched cotton as a priority industry in 2016, a move to diversify its economy, which is otherwise heavily reliant on oil and gas production and exports and therefore vulnerable to wild swings in global energy markets.
The cotton – today as it was in the past – is mostly exported as a raw product to neighbouring countries such as Turkey, Iran and Bangladesh for use in the textiles industry and fashion products sent around the world.
For centuries, as a stop on the ancient Silk Road, and then especially throughout an era under Russian control, cotton has been an important economic driver for the country.
“Cotton farming has a long history. There was a saying from the Soviet era that referred to cotton as ‘white gold’, which came after oil, known as ‘black gold’,” said Mr Rustam Quliyev, an officer with the Ministry of Agriculture in Imishli.
“Today, cotton cultivation still holds great importance for Azerbaijan,” he said.
The industry began to decline significantly when the USSR collapsed and Azerbaijan became an independent nation in 1991, and by 2009 production had diminished to just 21,000 hectares, around 10 per cent of what it was a couple of decades earlier.
Output that year plummeted to 31,000 tonnes compared to 830,000 tonnes a year in the late 1980s.
“When the Soviet Union collapsed, our scientists declared cotton farming a disaster for Azerbaijan, calling it a form of slave labour,” said Mr Azer Aliyev, an Imishli-based researcher focusing on economics and agriculture.
“However, when oil prices dropped in 2015, the government began searching for alternative sources of revenue, and cotton was chosen as a promising option. Why? Because cotton, unlike other products that Azerbaijan might produce, is competitive on the global market and can be sold at high prices on commodity exchanges, generating foreign currency,” he said.
In a presidential decree, the government labelled cotton a “strategic and important agricultural sector”, and made a bold prediction of a six-fold increase in cotton-planted areas and a ten-fold increase in production by 2022.
Areas under cotton cultivation rebounded to more than 100,000 hectares by 2023 – about 1.4 times the size of Singapore but still only around half of what was foreseen. The industry now contributes about 25 per cent of Azerbaijan’s national agriculture revenue.
Mr Elnur Soltanov, the CEO of COP29 – the UN-led climate change negotiations being held in Baku this month – said that his government “understands very well” that overdependence on a “certain natural resource” is not very good for the economy.
“I wouldn’t say agriculture is really the next area we would be betting on, but it will be one of the most significant sectors of our economy,” he said.
“Almost 35 per cent of our population is involved in the agricultural sector, and therefore we attach a lot of importance to it and there’s a lot to be done.”
A THIRSTY CROP
The Araz River is born in the rugged Bingöl mountains in Turkey, land shaped by volcanoes, before reaching the valleys and then semi-arid plains eastward in the Caucasus.
It forms a natural land border between Iran and Azerbaijan. This is fertile, low-lying land and the Araz feeds the fields in both countries.
Close to Imishli, concrete and engineering meet the river, part of an elaborate system of managing the water for agricultural use throughout the region.
A vast canal system was constructed in the Soviet era and from the Bahramtapa Hydro Hub – a hydroelectric and water management facility – hundreds of thousands of hectares of cultivated land receive allocations of water for irrigation.
Cotton is a thirsty crop. And while it can adapt well and thrive in higher temperatures, a lack of water for growth is a problem. In these dry parcels, rain is rarely enough.
Farmers like Mr Tofiq Aslanov are eyeing a move away from the area altogether. He feels the lure of greener pastures closer to the Caspian Sea, an escape from the empty taps and disappointing yields.
Rainfall in 2024 has been more reliable than last year. Even then, his main cotton field in Imishli resembles a moonscape, a dry and desolate expanse.
Dust envelops the air as local goats are herded to drink from a hose. The water can serve some gasping animals but it will not make cotton grow.
“Since we live on the outskirts of the village, we can’t find fresh water. Our crops have dried up and our lands have ended up in this condition, deteriorated like this,” he said.
“Cotton is a wonderful thing that creates job opportunities for people so there are no unemployed individuals; everyone is earning money. But now, due to lack of water, everyone is losing motivation.
“We are struggling. How are we supposed to survive? Everyone – the people, the community, the farmers – wants to abandon farming. They want to leave their crops and escape,” he said.
The issues are acknowledged by local authorities. Widespread efforts are being made to upgrade water management infrastructure – to turn the porous earth of many canals into concrete to save as much water flowing from the Araz and Kura rivers as possible.
In the past, water storage was less needed – snow and ice would melt in season and slowly flow from the mountains to the Caspian. Climate change has upended that process – water now often comes in extremes and its use is politicised across international lines.
“In our country, more than 70 per cent of the water in our territory comes from neighbouring countries. This creates a water shortage problem in our crops,” said Mr Quliyev.
Globally, the lack of water is a pressing concern. Half of the world’s food production and 15 per cent of lower-income countries’ GDP is at risk due to an ongoing water crisis, according to the Global Commission on the Economics of Water.
Normal precipitation – which so many communities rely on – can no longer be trusted, a scenario adversely affecting poorer populations.
Fundamentally, it means the answer may be to change the way farming is done; making it climate-smart, more intensive and adding value along the chain.
COP29 will have a strong focus on enhancing agrifood systems, lowering emissions in the agriculture and food sectors, targeting methane reductions and empowering rural communities.
POCKETS OF INNOVATION
There are green shoots of growth and change happening in fields all around Azerbaijan.
The cotton industry in Imishli and elsewhere throughout the country is controlled by one company – MKT Istehsalat Kommersiya.
MKT works with some 10,000 contracted farmers and operates about half of the country’s ginning operations, the process by which seeds and debris are removed from cotton. It also has a firm grip on export markets.
While some farmers blame MKT for the economic issues they are facing, the company is also spending more on innovation and technology to make cotton farming in Azerbaijan more modern and sustainable.
In Saatli, under MKT’s innovation branch, 4,000 hectares of crops are being cultivated using progressive methods. Multimillion dollar investments have been made here and the health of the company’s cotton is a sharp contrast to other smallholder farmers in the area.
“Water scarcity is being identified across the world. We are also facing water shortages. That’s why our government is taking measures,” said Mr Huseynov Sedafar, director of the MKT’s Innovation Branch in Saatli.
One measure is to install pivot or drip irrigation systems to replace traditional flooding techniques, which can reduce water use by 60 per cent, he said.
“In the future, those who understand this will gradually lean towards using these methods, even on small plots,” said Mr Sedafar.
Cutting-edge tractors with terrain scrapers guided by lasers and satellites prepare fields for planting. The idea is that a level surface guarantees even water distribution and soil moisture, reducing waste and disease.
These are techniques and technologies widely used in agriculture in other parts of the world. But they will take time to implement in Azerbaijan – or other places – where traditional methods are very deeply ingrained.
“We are taking it one step at a time, baby steps, to convince the people of the proof of concept,” said Mr Gert Barkhuizen, an agricultural land forming engineer and survey manager with MKT.
“Nobody likes change. We all know that. But once they see that this is all working, then boom.”
New varieties of cotton being introduced to local fields could help solve some farmers’ greatest complaint – that prices for their raw materials are so low, sapping their incentive to keep growing.
The next step to make the cotton industry more viable, experts say, is to add value domestically. In 2022, 99 per cent of Azerbaijan’s cotton was exported as a raw product.
“Okay, we are producing cotton now, more than in the beginning of the 2000s, but it’s the same situation as oil. We’re exporting only cotton. We are not producing something,” said Mr Toghrul Valiyev, an independent economist based in Baku.
“We have resources, raw materials, and I don’t know why we’re not making investments to do something with them,” he said.
One exception is GP Cotton Holdings, a fully integrated cotton and textile business, working with 8,000 cotton farmers.
Its chairman, John Young Simpson – also the managing partner of Bluegrass Partners, an agribusiness investment and advisory firm based in Singapore – says sustainability needs to be baked into the entire production chain for cotton to remain viable.
He said there are “massive low-hanging fruits in agriculture in Azerbaijan” due to the slow uptake of mechanisation in the supply chain. He sees big opportunities to be more efficient and innovate to improve yields and value.
His company is also keenly watching carbon accounting and sees a niche in the global export market for Azerbaijan cotton products with a green focus.
“Our competitors in the textile space globally often will import fibre from one country. It will be manufactured into yarn in another country. And so there are huge carbon miles involved in assembling garments and pieces for consumers to buy,” he said.
“Within 100 kilometres in Azerbaijan, we go from dirt to shirt. And we have full traceability along that supply chain,” he said.
Ms Leyla Najafguluyeva, who runs a local women’s support group in Imishli, wants people to remember the hidden hands – the sacrifice of the women still toiling under the sun.
Their adversity bleeds into the cotton they pick and their plight needs to be prioritised even as the nature of farming changes over time, she said.
“We know that our women, especially those who pick cotton, truly endure a lot of hardship. That’s why people need to witness and acknowledge the difficulties they go through,” she said.
“Sometimes we buy an item but we don’t think about how that item was produced, how much effort or how much hard labour went into it.
“We know that someone is out there planting, weeding the fields, picking the cotton and eventually facing health issues. Nothing would exist without this effort.”