“Turkmenistan: golden age” reported on 5 March that 60 thousand seedlings of mulberry trees are scheduled to be planted in the course of the spring landscaping campaign in Dashoguz velayat.
According to the news outlet, the expansion of agricultural land to grow mulberry trees has an economic aspect: at least 485 tons of silk cocoons are projected to be produced this year.
750 hectares of land will be allocated to plant 300 thousand trees. One fifth of the area will be used to grow horticultural crops, including apple, apricot, pear, plum, cherry plum, cherry and fig trees.
Let us recall that in late February President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov announced that during the nation-wide clean-up campaign, which is expected to take place across Turkmenistan, mulberry trees will be planted along the Karkum river and other bodies of water.
Public sector employees, university students and schoolchildren will be forcibly mobilized to participate in the clean-up campaigns. Those who refuse to be engaged in the community works will face reprimands, dismissals and expulsion.
Let us recall that in 2018 the US authorities imposed a ban on the importation of all Turkmenistan cotton, or products produced with Turkmen cotton as child and forced labour is used during its harvesting.
For the same reasons quite a few of the largest world brands including IKEA, H&M, Wrangler, Lee, Zara and others had previously refused to procure cotton and textile goods from Turkmenistan.