World Bank Document

31. 
Sub-component 1.4 Farmer adoption support (US$75.0 million). The objective of this sub-component is to 
provide more effective knowledge and advisory support for adoption of productive and CSA technologies and practices 
to enable more reliable and higher quality outputs by farmers. Accordingly, modalities and arrangements will be 
developed that make the delivery of services effective, pluralistic, inclusive, and demand-driven. Advisory and extension 
services are a key element in developing human capital in rural areas. Agriculture is the main economic activity there, 
and advisory and extension services are probably the one channel for offering rural people on-farm trainings, including 
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Investments in climate proof and energy efficient infrastructure will be pursued. 
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Investments in storage facilities will be designed with an objective, among others, to reduce exposure of products to extreme weather conditions. 

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The World Bank 
Agriculture Modernization Project (P158372) 
Page 16 of 70 
for women and youth, who otherwise do not have any access to vocational and higher education training
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. The sub-
component aims to achieve this by supporting: (i) advisory and extension centers; (ii) service provision, including 
technology transfer through demonstrations, awareness creation, field and/or farmers’ days, exhibitions, and trainings, 
including for cooperatives and partnerships; and (iii) intensive orchards pilots.
32. 
Advisory/extension centers: The sub-component will pilot the establishment of resource centers in selected 
districts to organize advisory and extension activities. Initially, twenty-six district level centers, in two districts per region, 
will be established to generate lessons for future scale up. Financing will include support for development of the 
institutional structure, and guidelines defining roles, responsibilities, accountability, financing, and functional processes. 
The MOA will lead activities related to establishing extension system from the central level. The establishment and/or 
strengthening of advisory and extension centers at central, regional, and local levels will involve: (i) development of 
training materials and training of trainers in the extension centers, especially on climate adaptation and mitigation 
approaches; (ii) construction of new, renovation/rehabilitation (of existing) and refurbishment (of both new and existing) 
infrastructure
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such as buildings, including training halls, audiovisual units, libraries and class rooms; and (iii) 
procurement of equipment, digital tools, farm machinery, vehicles, and demonstration materials, including inputs, field 
equipment, and audio-visual materials. To the extent possible, appliances will be energy-efficient. 
33. 
Service provision: Service provision will focus on transfer of tested, low-cost, and scalable CSA technologies 
generated by sub-components 1.1-1.3 and from other sources to farmers. In doing so, the sub-component will cover 
costs associated with demonstrations of technologies both at advisory and extension centers and on farmers’ plots, 
including the financing of operating costs and the procurement of inputs, training, workshops, and experience sharing 
(exchange) visits. Training activities will focus on bridging knowledge and skill gaps for farmers and staff of the advisory 
and extension centers, and capacity building of farm cooperatives (e.g. business coaching, CSA
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) and productive 
partnerships to help sustain the long-term collaboration between agribusinesses and farmers. The sub-component will 
also finance servers and computers to ensure internet connectivity to enable extension services to access knowledge 
database and agro-meteorological data and develop digital solutions for extension delivery and increasing outreach. 
34. 
Intensive Orchard Pilots: Uzbekistan has huge natural and competitive advantages in production of orchard fruits. 
These operations typically generate very high returns. Also, being highly labor intensive they create a significant number 
of durable and relatively well-paid jobs. However, this segment is severely under-developed due to a set of deep 
challenges. Orchard plantations are long-gestation investments, typically requiring long-term (5-10 years) finance/loans; 
however, the longest-term loans currently available to farmers are for 1-2 years, and that too backed by non-land 
collaterals. Orchard farming also require specialized agronomic inputs and climate resilient technologies. Unless it is 
organized collectively or at a sufficient scale, these skills are not easily available to small farmers working on their own. 
Also, since these target higher-value segments and dynamic export markets, they require significant commercial and 
management skills. The GoU has declared an ambitious plan to rapidly develop the orchard farm segment, targeting 
37,000 ha by 2021.
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Higher education attainment in Uzbekistan is one of the lowest in the region, at 10 percent. Only one out of ten qualified applicants were 
accepted at universities in 2019.
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Investments in climate proof and energy efficient infrastructure will be pursued. 
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Specific topics can include improving farmers’ skills in countering the increased incidence of pests, improved training for the selection of pest-
resistant and/ or heat-stress-tolerant seed and crop varieties and providing information on improving on-farm water use efficiency. Topics come 
from stakeholder consultations undertaken in preparation of: Sutton, W. et al. 2013. Reducing the Vulnerability of Uzbekistan’s Agricultural Systems 
to Climate Change: Impact Assessment and Adaptation Options. Washington, DC: World Bank.

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