Tajikistan's president urged his people to become food savvy in response to climate change, as the poor Central Asian country is particularly vulnerable to climate change and already plagued by malnutrition.
“Every family should have food reserves for up to two years,” Emomali Rakhmon said during a speech released by the presidential administration on Sunday in honor of a traditional Tajik holiday.
“Due to climate change and global warming, the world's socio-economic situation is deteriorating, the population is growing and the need for food is increasing,” he continued, demanding that everything must be done to “protect the country's food security.”
Despite progress, Tajikistan's malnutrition rate is the highest in Central Asia, according to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP). 30% of the almost 9 million people suffer from malnutrition.
Mr Rakhmon, who has been in power continuously since the end of the USSR, also urged his fellow citizens to “make the country more environmentally friendly”, “work hard” and “use water and land efficiently”.
Agriculture is essential in this mountainous country with a fragile economy. But like the rest of Central Asia, soils are deteriorating and water resources are declining, particularly under the impact of climate change.
Furthermore, according to the World Bank, the poorest of the fifteen former Soviet republics relies on imports and remains vulnerable to external shocks such as the war in Ukraine, while Russia remains Tajikistan's most important economic and military partner.
Nevertheless, President Rakhmon, who faces no opposition at the political level, is regularly greeted with mountains of fruit on his travels around the country, intended to illustrate the dynamism of Tajikistan's agriculture.