Publication Details
Abstract
Since 2017, Uzbekistan’s agro-industrial reforms have centered on what this study calls organizational convergence: the gradual merging of crop and livestock production with processing, logistics, finance, and services inside agro-industrial clusters and inter-farm cooperatives. Has this convergence actually improved production efficiency, and if so, by how much? This study takes up that question for Kashkadarya, one of Uzbekistan’s largest agrarian regions by cultivated area and livestock inventory. Using regional time-series statistics for 2018-2025 from the State Statistics Committee of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Statistical Department of Kashkadarya Region, and the Ministry of Agriculture, together with documentary analysis of the presidential decrees and resolutions that govern cluster formation, the study builds a sectoral convergence index alongside a set of partial and total factor productivity indicators, and tests their statistical association through correlation and regression analysis. The results point to a moderate-to-strong positive association between the depth of organizational convergence proxied by the share of contracted or clustered land, the number of operating agro-clusters, and the share of processed output in gross agricultural output and productivity outcomes, particularly within the cotton-textile and fruit-and-vegetable value chains. Livestock and grain tell a different story: the effects there are weaker and considerably more uneven, a pattern traceable largely to persistent water scarcity, fragmented dehkan-farm structures, and underdeveloped cold-chain logistics. Convergence appears to pay off mainly where organizational integration runs alongside infrastructure investment and contractual arrangements that preserve producer incentives not as a standalone lever. Building on this, the paper proposes a differentiated regional policy framework for deepening integration in Kashkadarya.