3^rd Global Food Security, Food Safety & Sustainability Conference

Abstract (brief summary): This article is devoted to the analysis of land as a factor of production. The empirical method of analysis gave us possibility to reveal the tendency of reduction of ​​arable land spots, which is the most valuable source of land for the agricultural sector, and significantly important than other categories of agricultural sector. This trend indicates that users of arable land, hayfield and pastures, and especially small scale farmers, do not have the right capacity to fully cultivate arable lands and hayfields, and this is creating a ground for their transfer into a lode land (abandoned) or into other lower categories of land. In this connection, we can conclude that on the basis of cause-effect reasons, the problem in Tajikistan is not a lack of this factor, but its inefficient and irrational use practices. Through effective use of existing land and natural resources, we may expand and increase the production capacities of Tajikistan. 

Key words: land, factors of production, natural resources, arable land, and lode lands (abandoned).

One of the foundations for the living of a civilized society is material production, which is the process of interaction of a person with objects of labor through various means and possibilities. Jointly, all these factors and elements including labor, the means of labor and humanity formulate the production forces of society. In modern interpretation, they can be mentioned as resources or factors of production.
           Undoubtedly, the main criterion for the progress of human being is the level and nature of the development of the productive forces, which in their turn they determine the degree of production efficiency. From the point of view of political economy and economic theory it is known that the productive forces impact on nature, changing the form and properties of natural resources. As a result of this influence, the productive forces are able to produce material goods to meet the different needs of people. In this connection, the productive forces of society express and shape the people's relationship to the nature.

In the current time, the value of land as a core factor of production of agricultural products is mainly estimated with cadastral price. Taking into account such pricing method, it is necessary to consider the various properties of the land, such as location, productivity, etc.
            The main distinguishing feature of the land, as a factor of production, is that it is impossible to replace it with other factors. Thinking logically, we can say that if human labor can be replaced by machines, or by some means of fixed or circulating assets, but land resource is an irreplaceable production resource (especially in agriculture). The society can regulate the size of the labor factor or the amount of productive capitals, but the possibility of expansion of ​​agricultural land, is severely restricted.

According to economic theory, all factors of production are characterized by a fixed supply in a particular period of time. This condition is even more actualized with regard to the natural factor of production. D. Ricardo and T. Malthus firstly touched the topic of the quantitative reduction of natural resources and their use. The rule that they raised on “diminishing soil fertility” is says that best plots are first involved in the production turnover, then the medium level land and, lastly, the worst parts of the land [2, 386]. For our study and interest, the population law of T. Malthus, which is based on the assumption that the number of consumption of goods by humanity grows with arithmetical progression, and the population grows geometric scale [2, 396]. In other words, gradually society will face a situation in which the production will not be enough for growing mass of people. According to FAO experts and data, the world's reserves of the main types of land resources have their limits as well. For example, the size of land for food production on the earth is 3.2 million hectares, more than half of which is already cultivated or used.

According to official statistics, there has been a tendency of reduction of agricultural land in the recent years in Tajikistan. So, if in 1991 year the size of the agricultural land was 4,434.1 thousand hectares, then in 2015 it was reduced to 3,612 thousand hectares (see Table 1). Comparing these numbers, we can see that the decrease level is about 19%.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 1. Total land area and area of agricultural land (thousand hectares)

 

Indicators	1991	1995	2000	2005	2010	2015
Total land area	14254,5	14254,5	14255,5	14255,5	14255,5	14137,7
All agricultural land	4434,1	4577,1	4126,5	3864,6	3746,0	3612,0
Arable land	811,2	801,8	730,1	709,0	673,1	653,2
Perennial plantations	103,4	111,2	98,1	97,4	115,7	140,4
Hayfields	26,4	23,7	18,9	17,0	17,7	17,6
Pastures	3473,4	3621,2	3258,4	3012,5	2909,8	2771,5
Abandoned land areas	19,7	19,2	21,0	28,7	29,7	29,3

 

Information Source: Tajikistan: 25 years of State Independence. Annual Statistical Paper. Published in Dushanbe 2016. Page.-310

 

The analysis shows that the reduction of arable land, which is the most valuable category of land for the agricultural sector, is significantly reducing compared to other categories of agricultural land. This trend indicates that users of arable land, hayfield and pastures, and especially small scale farmers, do not have the capacity to fully cultivate arable lands and hayfields, and these are creating ground for their transfer into a lode land (abandoned) or into other lower categories of land. According to the experts estimates, more than half of the country's territory - 9563.4 thousand hectares, or 67.1%, are low-productive or unsuitable lands for agriculture use. The possibilities of developing farming and agriculture on them are limited either by geomorphological soil conditions [1, 32-38].

 

As we see in the presented Table 1, the rate of reduction in these three categories of land is high and critical. Especially it concerns the reduction of arable land. Currently, the average world value of the size of arable land and its current productivity level per person is 0.4 hectares. Our calculations show that Tajikistan is in quite low level on this indicator. If in 1991 year the arable land area per capita was about 0.15 hectares, in 2015 year, this figure reached 0.08 hectares per capita [4, 310]. Such developments and use of land is a direct threat to the country's food and economic security.

As a rule, in agriculture sector, the process of reproduction is intertwined with the natural process of reproduction of agricultural lands. At the same time in this industry, the efficiency of production directly depends on the natural and climate conditions. A significant role in the efficiency of the agricultural sector belongs to the qualitative parameters and characteristics of land that we use. In the field of agricultural crop production, one of the main tasks is to provide agricultural crops with the necessary mineral and organic fertilizers. This practice takes place not only for increasing productivity of crops, but also to maintain the fertility of land, its protection from erosion and other natural phenomena. With is way the main content of the human impact on agricultural lands is contained. Also we can conclude that the above-mentioned ways of influencing the land are implemented by humanity with the aim of influencing the products we receive from land (plants). The land can act as a means of labor, because through the land human being influences plants. The formation of land for agricultural use has been the result of a natural process for many centuries. As a result, the evolution of the attitude of man to the earth, and his influence on property of land evolved in order to improve its qualitative characteristics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The quality of land as one of the key factor of production, their fertility is determined by the properties and attributes. The productivity of the land depends on the terrain and a number of other reasons. Also it is worth noting that natural and climate conditions affect productivity of land. These circumstances indicate the versatility and importance of land as a factor of production in general and its use in agricultural production process.
In addition to using the land factor in agricultural production, it is undeniable that land acts and is the main source of productive resources. In other words, the produced items mainly have natural origin (in fact synthetic compounds also have a natural origin).

The effectiveness land use as a factor of production largely depends on the degree of using/development of natural resources. The degree of development is determined by the measures and quality of exploration, extraction or piping out of the bowels of earth and preparation for production operation. According to the official statistics, Tajikistan in recent years, decreased the volume of geological exploration. For example, deep drilling geological searches were conducted only 2000s (Table 2). Such works have not been conducted in the recent years on territories of Tajikistan.

Table 2. The scope of geological exploration performed by types

Indicators	1995	2000	2005	2010	2015
Deep Exploration Drilling (by meters)		1241
Mechanical core drilling (by meters)	17330	5141	7349	5777	4294
Shock-mechanical drilling (by meters)	4297	2565	1352	1531	1616

 

Information Source: Tajikistan: 25 years of State Independence. Annual Statistical Paper. Published in Dushanbe 2016. Page.-313

 

At the same time, activities on mechanical column drilling and shock mechanical drilling also tend to decrease. All scientists of the country note that Tajikistan is rich in many types and reserves of minerals, which relate to spheres of the economy.
Such resources as fuel and energy are represented by coal, oil and natural gas fields/spots. In the structure of fuel and energy mineral resources the main place belongs to coal reserves. The metallurgical complex of the country is with its black ores, colored, rare and noble metals.
The agrochemical complex is characterized by large amounts of phosphorites reserves, rock salt, numerous deposits of boron ore, limestone and dolomites.

 

Also there are deposits of glass and ceramic raw materials such as quartz sand, wollastonite, pottery clays, asbestos, talc, refractory clays, barite, fluorite, bentonite, and ores, they all relate to the mineral resources of the industrial complex of Tajikistan.
Tajikistan is a mountainous country and rich in various types of construction mineral raw materials. Deposits of building mineral resources are open and explored in all regions of the country. They are represented by deposits of cement raw materials, torn and facing stones, brick raw materials, sand-gravel mixture, lime, gypsum, various clays, buildings sand, mineral paints, raw materials for the production of expanded clay, agloparite and heat-keeping materials.
In Tajikistan according to the statistical data except coal, the production of other products of the mining industry has a clear tendency to decrease (Table 3).

Table 3. Data on production of main products of mining industry

 

Indicators	1991	1995	2000	2005	2010	2015
Coal (thousand tones)	313	33,9	22,2	98,5	199,7	1041,9
Oil (including gas condensate) (thousand tones)	107,7	25,7	18,4	21,7	27,0	24,6
Natural gas million м3	92,5	38,8	40,0	29,4	22,8	4,1
Nonmetallic building materials (thousand м3)	6118	824,8	97,7	283,1	467,0	1167,4
Salt (thousand tones)	72,5	65,1	49,0	66,0	50,4	35,7

 

Data Source: Tajikistan: 25 years of State Independence. Annual Statistical Paper. Published in Dushanbe 2016. Page 297.

 

The current low level of development of available land resources allows concluding that the problem of target use of the land and intensity of natural resources use suggests modernization of technological processes.
The water resources that our country has can be another important component in the land structure and can serve as a factor of production in the conditions of Tajikistan. Tajikistan is considered as the second country in terms of hydro resources between CIS country after Russian Federation. The main water basins are glaciers. The largest glacial system is the Pamir mountains, the glaciation area of ​​is 8041 sq. Km. The number of recorded glaciers in the Pamirs is 1085 pieces [4;8].
Through the country's territory, on average, there goes more than 72km3 of river flow per year, which is 12 thousand m³ per inhabitant residing in our country. There are 947 rivers in the country with a length of more than 10 km each, and the total length of rivers exceeds 28500 km.
Involvement of water resources available on the territory of Tajikistan can not only ensure energy security, but also it can definitely increase the fertility of agricultural soil. This issue was emphasized several times in the Messages of the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon to the Parliament of country.

An important component land use as a factor of production is the use of natural resources. If we propose that the land is the source of raw materials for production, then it can be assumed its efficiency can be determined by calculating the material consumption of the products. For determination of the material consumption of products at the level of macroeconomics, as noted by the specialists of Economics and Demography Institute of Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, an intermediate expenditure indicator can be used [3, 365-367].
          Analysis shows that the share of intermediate expenditure (consumption) in relation to GDP in 2015 is 83% [4; 221]. This phenomenon of material consumption of GDP testifies the exceptional importance of implementing the policy of rational use of material (natural and raw materials) resources to increase country’s GDP. The fact is that reducing the material consumption of costs per unit means a decrease in the size of intermediate consumption, which ultimately leads to an increase of GDP.
          Based on qualitative and quantative analysis of the of land characteristics as a factor of production, it can be concluded that the problem is not the lack of this factor (land), but its inefficient and non-rational use in Tajikistan. Through effective use of existing land and natural resources, there is a great potential to expand and increase production capacities in this country.