Uzbekistan and Russia are discussing the possibility of providing Russian agricultural land to Uzbek farmers. This became known following the online talks between the Uzbek Minister of Agriculture Оamshid Khodоaev and the Russian Deputy Minister of Agriculture Sergei Levin, which took place the day before.

The main goal of the bilateral online meeting is to discuss issues of providing agricultural land in Russia to Uzbek firms for growing several types of crops.

"This meeting is a logical continuation of our recent talks with Dmitry Patrushev in June this year within the framework of the second meeting of the Joint Commission at the level of heads of government in Moscow. We have reached a preliminary agreement on the allocation of agricultural land in the Russian Federation for growing a number of agricultural crops by Uzbek entreprises with subsequent export of the crop to Uzbekistan, such crops as oilseeds, soybeans, wheat, "Jamshid Khojaev emphasized.

In August 2021, the Ministry of Agriculture of Uzbekistan sent the Russian side a list of crops and provisional calculations for the area required for their cultivation.

"At the current stage, we propose to launch this project on an area of ​​35 thousand hectares to establish contacts and interaction mechanisms, as well as their practical development. And we express our interest in gradually expanding these areas to 300-500 thousand hectares in the coming years, and in in the long term - up to 1 million hectares. My deputy Anvar Asamov and a team represented by the heads of departments will be directly involved in this joint project. We are ready to continue working to find new points of cooperation for the benefit of the development of the industry and the prosperity of citizens of our states, "said Khodjaev.

Sergei Levin and his colleagues noted that currently in the Russian Federation there are about 8-13 million hectares of land for adding to agricultural circulation, and 23 constituent entities of the Russian Federation have already expressed a preliminary interest in supporting this Uzbek-Russian project.

During the meeting, the parties discussed certain issues of land allocation, including the conditions for providing Uzbek partners with long-term leases of agricultural land.

The parties agreed to discuss specific mechanisms and terms for the implementation of the project during the visit of the Uzbek working group to the Russian Federation in October this year.