Bountiful melon harvest sweetens Uzbekistan’s COVID-19 pandemic problems

VAZIR, Uzbekistan: In the giant shed of Uzbek farmer Sanat Kalandarov, a bountiful harvest of melons hangs suspended from wooden beams, promising profits during the harsh winter ahead.

Kalandarov is practicing a type of storage that is centuries old – the shed has been in his own family for three generations – and he disdains the younger farmers who are turning to refrigerators.

“Melons need fresh air to breathe,” said Kalandarov, 35, pointing to narrow vents in the shed walls, which are thick enough to protect the fruits from the cold of winter and the heat of early spring.

“When the days are freezing, we insulate the room. Also, this method does not require electricity. It is very economical.”

These thick-skinned varieties of Uzbekistan’s favorite fruit, some torpedo-shaped, others more spherical, are planted in May, two months after the melons ripen in summer.

They are then stored and sold during the winter, when their value can be multiplied by 15 in the domestic market and even more abroad.

This year, the melon growing season has been especially good, and just as good.

The coronavirus pandemic hit Uzbekistan hard, just as it was at a time of economic upswing.

Remittances sent by migrants working abroad were cut in half, according to a United Nations Development Program report released in July, draining hundreds of thousands of family budgets that depended on them.

The strict closures led to massive layoffs across the landlocked country of 33 million, with small businesses especially hard hit.

Kalandarov, by contrast, has been able to hire 12 people who would otherwise have been unemployed from his village of Vazir in the arid northwest of the country.

It also plans to ship its first batch of melons for export to neighboring Kazakhstan in late October.

“With COVID-19 and all the unemployment (it has caused), these winter melons are a lifesaver,” he told AFP, noting that he had 50 tons of the harvest to sell out of season.

MELON COUNTRY

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, an average of 700,000 tonnes of melons are grown annually in Uzbekistan on 35,000 hectares of land.

Shohruh Tolibov, a ministry expert, said exports account for less than 10 percent of that total; some of the sweeter varieties do not travel well. But they will more than double this year and have increased fivefold in the last three years.

That growth has been triggered by the agricultural reforms of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, who broke the monopolistic interests that dominated the export of fruit and vegetables and allowed small farmers the opportunity to determine their own customers.

Kazakhstan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia and Ukraine are the main destinations for Uzbek melons, Tolibov told AFP.

Earlier this month, local group Jahon Exim claimed that it had overseen the first exports of Uzbek melons to Britain.

“We hope that Uzbek melons, known for their taste and health benefits, will be appreciated by local consumers,” said the company’s director, Jahongir Giyasov, in comments to local media.

Uzbekistan grows more than 50 types of melons.

Khorezm, a region in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya River that benefits from mild winters, grows at least 12 and they all share one common characteristic: deliciousness.

While other crops fail in this area, “melons grow sweeter in saline lands,” said Kalandarov, whose employees hungrily feasted on some of his produce, slicing through the green-skinned bounty like sticky birthday cakes at the end of a long and warm, autumn day.

Kalandarov grew up in the melon fields and has been growing his own fruit since he was a teenager.

But he is no longer satisfied with this job alone. Instead, his dream is the same as the declared policy of the national government: to go from selling raw products to products with added value.

“I have a business plan. I want to create new products: melon jam, canned melon, dried melon. There is a great demand for these products in foreign markets,” he told AFP.