Agriculture in Kyrgyzstan

As far as total production, the largest crop is assorted types of animal fodder to feed the livestock of the country.

[1] Due to its climate, Kyrgyzstan was considered as an excellent location for growing cotton, tobacco, wheat, and other crops in the Soviet period.

[2] The mono-crop approach of farming was deleterious to the soil and cotton production led to an exhaustion of water resources.

[3] In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Kyrgyz agricultural sector experienced substantial reform but the pace of change subsequently slowed and strategic government development became more small-scale and limited.

[5] In 2010, AOI-Kyrgyzstan, a Kyrgyz subsidiary of Pyxus International (then known as Alliance One), a global tobacco leaf merchant headquartered in North Carolina, United States, pleaded guilty to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, relating to bribes paid to Kyrgyzstan government officials in connection with its purchase of Kyrgyz tobacco.

In fact, the 2013 U.S. Department of Labor report on the worst forms of child labor indicated that 4.5% of children aged 5 to 14 were engaged in such working conditions in tobacco cultivation, and that despite the availability of education, evidence suggested that "a limited number of schools required children to harvest tobacco on school grounds".

[10] Despite adopting an action plan for the National Program against Human Trafficking for 2013-2016, "interagency coordination on child labor continued to be poor", according to the report.

[11][12] The stated aim of the 2023 labeling law was to ensure confidence in the Kyrgyz national organic standard as a designation that meets international regulations.