'Swamp Of Poverty': Uzbek Cotton Farmers Refusing To Work With 'Cluster' Monopoly, 20 January 2021

Uzbek farmers say they are fed up with the private monopolies they’ve been “forced” to work through in recent years to grow and sell crops under Uzbekistan’s agriculture reform strategy -- the so-called “cluster” system...

Since 2018, an increasing number of Uzbek farmers say they’re not being adequately compensated under contracts they’ve been forced to sign with the cluster firms that monopolize their region.

In cases of the more shadowy clusters documented by RFE/RL, some Uzbek farmers say they’ve never been paid for their harvests...

The Uzbek Forum [for Human Rights] says the responsibility of local officials to fulfill planned cotton yields “raises concerns that they could resort to coercion, given their past role in mobilizing forced labor, to fulfill state quotas.”

[refers to Uztex; Uztex declined RFE/RL's request to comment]