ABSTRACT
Zvi Lerman (1998: 157) summarized the salient attributes of the reforming Uzbek agrarian system as the ‘retention of state monopoly on land ownership and continued pervasive intervention of local and central authorities in agriculture’. While some substantial transformations did get under way, including a new land code and the ongoing de-collectivization of the former large state farms and cooperatives (towards the formation of much smaller individual commercial farms), ‘the combination of state monopoly on land and continued central controls’ (ibid.) observed by Lerman have remained in place. Unlike most of the former Soviet Union countries, the state’s retreat from agriculture has not really started in Uzbekistan. Pervasive state interventions, and an economic system based on quotas and production targets, overshadow the reform path.
