In October 2007, I had the opportunity to spend two weeks in central Asia volunteering on a project in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic. The project, which the U.S. Agency for International Development funded, involved working in rural areas to provide technical assistance to new water-user associations. These associations are the Kyrgyz (“Kur-geez”) version of irrigation districts. 

Under the Soviet system, the government ran all of the irrigated farms, either as state-run farms or state-owned collective farms. When the Soviet empire collapsed, Kyrgyzstan, like many former republics, became independent.  Unfortunately, for people in rural areas, this meant the end of government support for their farming operations.  Although the Kyrgyz government had divided the farmland among farmers, in most cases, it made few provisions to operate and maintain the irrigation distribution systems. Without government support, most systems, which were poorly constructed to start with, fell into disrepair.

I traveled to Kyrgyzstan with an extension professor from the University of Florida, Brian Boman. Boman worked for Reclamation in Bismark, N.D., and Farmington, N.M., before obtaining his doctorate degree and moving into irrigation extension work. Our objectives for the project were to meet with operators of three new water-user associations to examine their irrigation distribution systems. We also planned to provide advice on managing irrigation systems and to develop recommendations on educating the associations to better serve their farmers.  Primarily, we helped them prioritize the very long list of tasks they would have to accomplish to get their irrigation systems back in working order. Once they determined where to start, they could then work on obtaining funding for their rehabilitation work.

We flew into the capitol city of Bishkek, a trip that took four flights and 30 hours. Two days later, we traveled four hours by car to the northeastern village of Gregorievka, which is located near Ysyk-Kol, a large mountain lake.  Melting snow from area’s 14,000-foot mountains feeds into the lake. The climate and elevation there is much like parts of the intermountain West. The area is about 5,000 feet above sea level, with warm, dry summers, cold winters and 10 inches to 12 inches of annual precipitation. We stayed at the home of a host family. Like most in the village, they had electricity but no running water.  Most villagers hauled water from standpipes scattered through town. It was common for us to see horse carts and even livestock on the village streets.

With the help of our translator, we got to know several of the managers from the water-user associations. They seemed very appreciative of the advice we offered and the technical assistance we could provide to them. I hope to be able to follow up with them in the future to see how their efforts progress. We saw some of the rehabilitation work they had completed, as well as the challenges they still had to overcome. One of the most obvious needs facing these water-user associations is acquiring equipment, so they can start doing their own maintenance work on irrigation systems.  The problems we found with these systems include silt-clogged reservoirs, damaged concrete canals, inoperable canal structures and canals overgrown with brush.  The associations are also trying to develop the tools to better manage the distribution systems. This includes developing maps to inventory canal facilities and procedures to measure and tabulate canal flows. Needless to say, they have a very long road ahead of them. After years of having the government operate their systems, it appears to be tough for them to adapt to doing things on their own.

This was a very interesting and rewarding trip that I won’t soon forget. For additional information on the project, go to the Web site of Winrock International, www.winrock.org, the contractor that runs the U.S. Agency for International Development project in Kyrgyzstan. Or for information specifically on the Winrock projects in Kyrgyzstan, please go to, http://www.winrock.org/programs/country.asp?countryid=1150.