KULOB, July 30, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- During his recent visit to Kulob, President Rahmon charged administrators of Kulob, Vose and Hamadoni to use mechanical cotton harvesters.

Later, the Kulob mayor Homid Abdulloyev noted that president’s instruction on organization of the mechanized cotton harvesting will be implemented.  The Vose and Hamadoni administrators also assured that the mechanized cotton harvesting will be organized in the districts.  

However, speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, Ahmad Safarov, the deputy head of the Kulob agriculture directorate in charge of technical matters, doubted the implementation of president’s instruction on the mechanized cotton harvesting in the region.  

“I am willing to concede that machine operators in the Hamadoni can assemble two cotton harvester from the old ones because they have spare parts,” said Safarov, “But I doubt that the Kulob and Vose districts will be able to do that because nothing has remained from the former fleets of harvesters in