Uzbekistan: Crop Crisis In Karakalpakstan Uzbekistan's autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan is facing an agricultural crisis caused by the authorities' practise of planting large amounts of crops on unsuitable stretches of land. Experts fear that government planners are refusing to take the region's ecological crisis, caused by the drying up of the Aral Sea, into account in their eagerness to fulfil the largest quotas possible. Authorities demand that as much rice and cotton as possible are planted on the autonomous republic's land, which is fast losing its fertility due to increasingly saline irrigation water from the evaporating sea.

It boggles the mind how these people could live for decades under Soviet rule and still think that Soviet-style agricultural policy is a good idea. The people who call the shots are so ensconced in their own little political world that they don't notice the devastating consequences their decisions have on everyone else.