In 2003 Helvetas started the project called "Organic Cotton Production and Trade Promotion", which aims at promoting organic agriculture in Central Asia and at developing a national or international market for organic cotton and other organic agricultural products. The project's aim is to enable committed farmers to support their families from organic farming. The cultivation of organic cotton entails crop rotation. Farmers may no longer be dependend on chemical pesticides and their financial risk is reduced through a premium as well as the cultivation of various different crops.
During the project's first year the main task was to train staff and farmers, in the year 2005 numerous field trials were carried out in which alternative rotation crops such as buckwheat, fodder maize, sugar maize, popcorn, three different varieties of beans, lentils and cucumbers were tried. Furthermore, mixed cultivation was tried (cotton/beans, cotton/peanuts, cotton/maize). A women’s group has been founded who is in charge of the marketing and processing of rotation crops. The main tasks in 2005 were the purchase of . The main tasks in 2005 were the production of organic fertilisers, the cultivation of rotation crops and establishing a farmers’ organisation.
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