President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said that in the past, a lack of political will meant cotton cultivation effectively dictated life for the entire country, with even schoolchildren mobilized for fieldwork. The president made the remarks at a ceremony marking the inauguration of new facilities to celebrate the 35th anniversary of independence, responding to a speech by Erkinjon Turdimov, governor of Syrdarya province.
Reflecting on the transformations of the past decade, the provincial governor said that under Mirziyoyev, the country had shed what he called "cotton slavery."
"You've often said we were dependent on cotton. You freed us from cotton slavery, too. Schoolchildren no longer had to leave the fields. None of this happened on its own," Turdimov said.
In response, the president noted that in the past, the cotton campaign had effectively consumed almost the entire year.
"But everyone has already forgotten about that slavery. Because of a lack of political will, we truly were all slaves to cotton. Twenty-four hours a day, twelve months a year, we were plowing, topping, defoliating, harvesting. We did nothing else," Mirziyoyev said.
"From an agricultural province to an industrial one"
Turdimov also said that in recent years, Syrdarya Province had transformed from a predominantly agricultural area into an industrial one.
"Syrdarya province has now become an industrial province rather than an agricultural one, Mr. President. We watch television today and see facility after facility opening. All of this is the result of your reforms. Back in Soviet times, opening a facility like this required a Communist Party resolution — and even then, some projects were left unfinished, and others were never completed at all," the governor said.
Picking up on his point, Mirziyoyev remarked: "It used to take three years just to build a single school."
According to the governor, Syrdarya province is expected to attract $2 billion in investment in 2026.
"Would anyone have believed that Syrdarya could attract $2 billion in investment? No one would have. It turns out it's possible," Mirziyoyev said.
Turdimov said that a decade ago, investment in the province was extremely low. Today, in the Syrdarya free economic zone, investment per hectare stands at $3.8 million, compared with roughly $1 million per hectare previously, he noted.
The governor also said residents of the province are determined to meet the goals set for them.
"Frankly, morale among the people of Syrdarya is very high right now. We will carry out everything you've asked of us wholeheartedly," he said.
Mirziyoyev has criticized the country's former cotton-growing system before. During a visit to Syrdarya Province in December 2025, at a meeting with farmers, he said that a significant part of people's lives had been "wasted in the cotton fields."
"It turns out our lives were spent in vain on cotton. We suffered for 27 years. We all saw this cotton scourge in the fields, and there was no result," the president said at the time.
In 2022 the International Labour Organization (ILO) declared an end to the systematic use of child and forced labor in Uzbekistan's cotton harvest. Following that announcement, the Cotton Campaign coalition lifted its years-long global boycott of Uzbek cotton.
That same year, the Better Cotton Initiative officially launched a program to help Uzbek cotton growers adopt more environmentally and socially sustainable production methods.
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