Bean growers count the cost of a dry summer

KYZYL-ADYR — In the lower Talas valley, July is when the bean fields need water most, and this year many of them did not get enough. Growers in Kara-Buura District say that rotation schedules imposed on the main canals in the hottest weeks of the summer left their plants short of water at flowering, and that they expect lower yields of the crop that has become the valley's best-known export.

Under the schedules, set by the Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate, canals are opened to each area in turn. Growers at the tail of the system said their turns had come too late and too briefly. "By the time the water reaches us, the big farms upstream have had their fill," said Nazgul Toktomusheva, who grows beans for export on 12 hectares outside Kyzyl-Adyr. Most of the valley's beans are sold to Turkey.

Farmers' associations have long criticized the directorate for slow canal repairs and for favoring large commercial farms when water is scarce. Several growers said that leaks from unlined canals in the lower valley, where waterlogging and salinity are already a problem, had made matters worse this year.

The directorate said the rotations had been applied equally across the valley and that its staff were inspecting the canals in Kara-Buura. It said that certified seed and fertilizer would continue to be sold at subsidized prices for the autumn. Its budget, which depends on allocations from the ISEZ, is not published in detail.