User:Zlerman/sandbox
Experimenting with images
The growth of Azerbaijan's agricultural output shows three distinct phases. The first phase is the Soviet growth period that lasted from 1965 to 1985, during which the output tripled.
Then came the collapse phase that started still during the USSR era and continued until 1997, when Aliev's 1995 farm-structure reforms began to have an effect. During this phase, the output contracted by more than 50%. After 1997, came the steady, almost linear growth fueled by Aliev's reforms with agricultural output rising to 2023 at a geometrical average rate of almost 5% annually.[1]
Trying to work with tables (text from Agriculture in Uzbekistan)
Agricultural production
[edit | edit source]
Uzbekistan produced in 2018:
| Crop | Quantity
produced |
World
rank |
|---|---|---|
| Wheat | 5.4 million tons | |
| Potatoes | 2.9 million tons | |
| Cotton | 2.2 million tons | 8th largest |
| Tomatoes | 2.2 million tons | 14th largest |
| Carrots | 2.1 million tons | 2nd largest (after China) |
| Watermelons | 1.8 million tons | 8th largest |
| Grapes | 1.5 million tons | 15th largest |
| Onions | 1.4 million tons | 15th largest |
| Apples | 1.1 million tons | 14th largest |
| Cucumbers | 857 thou tons | 7th largest |
| Cabbage | 743 thou tons | |
| Apricot | 493 thou tons | 2nd largest (after Turkey) |
| Maize | 413 thou tons | |
| Garlic | 254 thou tons | |
| Rice | 221 thou tons | |
| Cherries | 172 thou tons | |
| Peaches | 161 thou tons | |
| Plums | 134 thou tons |
In addition to smaller quantities of other agricultural products.
Back to Agriculture in Azerbaijan updates
I intend to use this sandbox to develop a rewritten draft of Agriculture in Azerbaijan which requires a thorough update and editing. The new material will be developed and uploaded in stages, so bear with me until it is complete.
Dec. 31. 2024: When I tried submitting the draft for review just now, I noticed that this option is intended only for new articles, not for updates/revisions of existing articles. So I will have to go ahead and incororate my updates in the main article and see how the reactions develop.
Agriculture in Azerbaijan: updates to Wikipedia article
Soviet Azerbaijan was largely an agrarian country, with the share of agriculture in GDP fluctuating around 30% through the 1980s.[2] After the demise of the USSR in 1991, Azerbaijan’s economy underwent rapid “petrolification” with the share of the oil sector rising from 16% of GDP in 1995 to 64% in 2023.[3] The share of agriculture simultaneously decreased from 25% in 1995 to less than 6% in 2023.[4] Today, Azerbaijan is classified by international institutions as an upper-middle-income economy rich in hydrocarbon resources.[5]
Azerbaijan's agricultural land endowment was about 4.8 million hectares in 2023, a slight increase from 4.4 million hectares in 1992. Arable land, on the other hand, showed a marked increase of nearly 30% from 1.6 million hectares in 1990 to 2.0 million hectares in 2023, highlighting expansion of farming practices.[4] A steady 30% of the agricultural land has remained under irrigation since 1990; the share of irrigated arable land declined over time from nearly 70% in 1990 to slightly over 60% in 2023 because the stagnating irrigation network could not catch up with the expansion of arable land.[6]
Agricultural production
Azerbaijan's agricultural production was crop-biased in the Soviet period. However, the share of crops in Azerbaijan's Gross Agricultural Output (GAO) steadily decreased since independence from over 60% in 1990 to slightly less than 50% in 2023.[6] The production structure is now evenly balanced between crops and livestock.
The primary crops produced in Azerbaijan are cereals (mainly wheat and barley), horticultural crops (potatoes, vegetables, melons), and certain fruits (primarily pomes and subtropical varieties - persimmon and pomegranate, but also stone fruits - peaches and apricots). Citrus fruits (represented mainly by mandarine oranges) and nuts (represented mainly by hazelnuts) have never played a prominent role in Azerbaijan's crop production. Cotton, tobacco, and tea - the three traditional industrial crops in Soviet Azerbaijan - have been marginalized. Tea and tobacco virtually disappeared from Azerbaijan's product mix: tea dropped from a peak of 13,000 hectares producing 35,000 tons in 1988 to just 1,000 hectares producing 1,000 tons in 2023; tobacco dropped from 16,000 hectares producing 60,000 tons in 1985 to less than 3,000 hectares producing 6,000 tons in 2023. Neither of these crops makes a measurable contribution to the value of Azerbaijan's agricultural production in 2023. Cotton production increased steadily with government encouragement from 300,000 tons in the early 1950s to a peak of 1 million tons in 1981. It dropped precipitously to a mere 35,000 tons in 2015, rebounding to 300,000 tons in 2022-2023. Areas sown to cotton followed a similar pattern, peaking at 300,000 hectares in 1982, declining to a low of less than 20,000 hectares in 2015, and rebounding to 100,000 hectares in 2019-2023.[6]
Cereals rank second by importance among Azerbaijan's crops today. With production of 3 million ton and sown area of 1 million hectare (averages for 2010-2023), cereals contributed 12% of GAO during 2015-2023. The first place belongs to the composite category of horticultural crops, which include potatoes, vegetables, and melons. Combined with orchard fruits, these crops contributed fully 30% of Azerbaijan's GAO for 2020-2023.[6]
Changes in farming structure
Azerbaijan entered independence in 1991 with the traditional Soviet farm structure characterized state ownership of all agricultural land and by extreme duality: some 3,000 large “socialized” or corporate farm enterprises (collective and state farms) controlled more than 95% of agricultural land while 800,000 rural households with individual plots farmed less than 5% of land. The average agricultural enterprise in the early 1990s had 1,500 hectares of agricultural land compared with merely 0.17 hectares for a household plot.[2]
Such duality of farm structure, anchored to state ownership of all agricultural land, was a hallmark of the Soviet economic system. International institutions and Western economists urged the Government of Azerbaijan to embark on a process of land reform, including land privatization and farm restructuring, with the ultimate objective of bringing Azerbaijan's agriculture in line with the practice of market economies and improving its efficiency through better utilization of the country’s agricultural potential.[7] Responding to international expert advice, Heydar Aliev, the President of Azerbaijan, established in March 1995 a special State Commission on Agrarian Reforms (SCAR) with the responsibility to study the international experience with land-related issues and solicit the recommendations of foreign experts.[8]
The first indications of the seriousness of the intentions to embark on land reform came in 1991, years before the establishment of SCAR. The first Land Code of Independent Azerbaijan passed in November 1991 contained a landmark provision that recognized private ownership and transferability of land.[9] Soon after that, in April 1992, came the Law on Peasant Farms that for the first time in decades established a new legal form of farming organization based on family labor and falling between large farm enterprises (collective and state farms) and household plots.[10] In the process of reforms, land was sweepingly privatized and became fully transferable.[11] [12] [13]
The socialized farm enterprises (collective and state farms) were disbanded between 1990 and 1998.[6] Some of them reorganized as private farming corporations, but most land from the former collective and state farms was distributed to farm members and rural residents essentially free of charge. In total, more than 1.3 million hectares of land had been privatized as of 2001 to approximately 817,700 families. In addition, over 620,000 household farms increased their plots to 2.8 hectares on average (up from 0.17 hectares in the Soviet era). As of January 2001, the individual sector produced 97% of agricultural goods in Azerbaijan.[7] After 2001, however, the share of the individual sector began to slip, and in 2020-2023 it stood at about 90% of GAO.[4]
These production shares constitute a complete reversal of the agricultural production structure: at the end of the Soviet era, in 1990, agricultural enterprises produced 65% of Gross Agricultural Product (GAO) with the individual houseplot sector accounting for the remaining 35%.[2] Even in 1990, however, the share of the individual houseplots in GAO was paradoxically high given their low share in agricultural land (less than 5%). This phenomenon, observed for all CIS countries, could be explained by the difference in cropping patterns: household plots specialized in labor-intensive crops (potatoes, vegetables, fruits) while corporate and peasant farms mainly produced extensive crops (grain, industrial and feed crops).[14]
The loss of land by agricultural enterprises adversely affected crop production and triggered a dramatic shift to livestock. The share of crops in the GAO of farm enterprises plummetted from 80%-90% during the first decade of independence (1990-1999) to a low of 20% between 2003-2008 and eventually rebounded to around 50% in the 2020s. In the private sector, on the other hand, the crop-livestock production shares fluctuated in a narrow range between 40% and 60% and stabilized around 50% since 2014.[6] It is the private sector production that determined the evenly balanced crop-livestock shares for the country.
- ^ State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan. "Azerbaijan: Agriculture, forestry and fishing". Azerbaijan statistical series. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c Lerman Zvi, Sedik David (2010). Rural Transition in Azerbaijan. USA: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-0-7391-4316-2.
- ^ "Oil reliant azerbaijan chosen to host cop29 climate talks". Climate Change News. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan (2024). "The Agriculture of Azerbaijan: Statistical Yearbook" (PDF). State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan, E-Versions of Publications. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
- ^ World Bank (April 2021). "Azerbaijan: World Bank Macro Poverty Outlook 2020" (PDF). World Bank Publications: Macro Poverty Outlook for Azerbaijan. Retrieved December 26, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b c d e f State Statistical Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan. "Azerbaijan: Agriculture, forestry and fishing". Azerbaijan statistical series. Retrieved December 29, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ a b Giovarelli Renee, Bledsoe David (October 2001). "Land Reform in Eastern Europe: Western CIS, Transcaucasus, Balkans, and EU Accession Countries". Land reform in Azerbaijan. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Agro-Melehet (Nadirov Faig, Hajiyev Musa) (February 2003). "Present-day conditions and prospects of land policy in Azerbaijan". APRL_country paper_azerbaijan.pdf. Retrieved December 28, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (June 25, 1999). "Land Code of Azerbaijan (1991-1999)". FAOLEX Database. Retrieved December 30, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (April 8, 1992). "Law No. 102 on Peasant Farms". FAOLEX Database. Retrieved December 31, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (February 18, 1995). "Law No. 976 on Agrarian Reform". FAOLEX Database. Retrieved December 31, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (February 18, 1995). "Law No. 978 on reform of kolkhozes and sovkhozes". FAOLEX Database. Retrieved December 31, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (July 16, 1996). "Law No.155-IQ on land reform". FAOLEX Database. Retrieved December 31, 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Uzun, Vasilii (March 2005). "Large and Small Agricultural Business: Adaptation to Market". Comparative economic studies. 47 (1): 85–100.