The Challenges to Sustainable Development in Rural Regions of the Kyrgyz Republic

摘要

Agriculture has played an important role in developing the economy of the Kyrgyz Republic. Recently the Republic has actively promoted regional agribusiness development but faced challenges, including climate change consequences and financial limitation. The objective of this paper is to examine these challenges and to identify the role public administrations can play in securing sustainable agricultural developments in rural regions. This examination is based on the questionnaire survey among 82 farmers in two rural administrative regions. We chose these regions mainly because of their importance in developing agriculture. We wanted to find out what prevent these farmers from successfully developing the regional economy today and in the future. We asked them questions related to the impact of climate change to agriculture, their willingness to start non-agricultural businesses, and their needs of public intervention. We also asked what these farmers expected from the public administration. The results show that the main challenges largely differ by regions though most farmers identified lack of marketing and machinery as well as impacts of climate change as formidable obstacles to advancing their businesses. This paper also discusses what these farmers perceived about their future survival.