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Abstract
Omnipresent control of Uzbekistan government in agriculture undermines land tenure security
among the farmers and as result leads to low productivity and low incentives for investment into the
land. In its turn low productivity in cotton farms worries the Uzbek policy makers on whether
giving more freedom to 'private' farms will adversely alter vital production of cotton. In this study
we hypothesized on opportunity of enhancing land tenure security in today's Uzbekistan without
altering government's demand for cotton. Specifically we showed that relaxing requirement over
the land occupation under cotton while leaving only government demand for output will result in
freeing significant percentage of land area and consequently enhancing land [property] rights.
Indeed, our estimates suggest that depending on the soil quality and entrepreneurship skills of
farmer, from 3% to 6% of farm lands can be potentially taken out off the cotton production and
used for producing alternative crops.