A dehkan farm is a term for an individual or family farm

Family farm

A family farm is a farm owned and operated by a family, and often passed down from generation to generation. It is the basic unit of the mostly agricultural economy of much of human history and continues to be so in developing nations...

 in Central Asia. Originally a Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 word used by the Sassanid Empire

Sassanid Empire

The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...

, it is still utilized in the classification systems of several regional governments.

Uzbekistan

In Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....

, household plot

Household plot

Household plot is a legally defined farm type in all former socialist countries in CIS and CEE. This is a small plot of land attached to a rural residence. The household plot is primarily cultivated for subsistence and its traditional purpose since the Soviet times has been to provide the family...

s were reclassified as "dehkan farms" in 1998, at which time the Law of Dehkan Farms was passed. Around 60% of all agricultural production in the country comes from dehkan farms, which control less than 5% of arable land in the country and average less than 0.2 hectares in size.

The small dehkan farms grow vegetables and raise livestock. Scale crops, such as wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

 and cotton

Cotton

Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....

, are usually grown on larger peasant farms (average size more than 40 hectares) and on the few remaining shirkats (former collective farms). All agricultural land in Uzbekistan is owned by the state. While this situation allows the state to demand certain performance and production standards from larger farms, dehkan farms are allowed to grow whatever the farmers wish. Additionally, unlike larger farms where leases must be renewed, leases for dehkan farms are lifetime holdings and can be transferred through inheritance. They cannot, however, be sold or given to someone outside the family as a gift.

Dehkan farms own 93% of all cattle in Uzbekistan.

Tajikistan

In Tajikistan

Tajikistan

Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....

, "dehkan farms" are midsized peasant farms that are legally and physically distinct from household plots. Regulations concerning dehkan farms in Tajikistan are laid out in the Law No. 48 on Dehkan Farms, dating from 2002.

Dehkan farms cultivate more than 60% of agricultural land in Tajikistan, averaging about 20 hectares in size (compared to less than 2 hectares in household plots). Dehkan farms concentrate in crop production (cotton, wheat, and vegetables) and their share of livestock is minimal.

See also

• Agriculture in Central Asia
  Agriculture in Central Asia
  Agriculture in Central Asia provides a brief regional overview of agriculture in the five contiguous states of former Soviet Central Asia – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan...
  
  
• Agriculture in Tajikistan
  Agriculture in Tajikistan
  Tajikistan is a highly agrarian country, with its rural population at more than 70% and agriculture accounting for 60% of employment and around 30% of GDP...
  
  
• Agriculture in Uzbekistan
  Agriculture in Uzbekistan
  Agriculture in Uzbekistan employs 28% of the country's labor force and contributes 24% of its GDP . Crop agriculture requires irrigation and occurs mainly in river valleys and oases. Cultivable land is 4.4 million hectares, or about 10% of Uzbekistan's total area, and it has to be shared between...