Mechanization and Labor Demand in Uzbekistan's Agriculture

Uzbekistan's government has committed substantial public credit to accelerating the mechanization of agriculture, with machine-assisted cotton picking targeted to reach 70 percent of the harvest in 2026 and 85 percent under the reconfigured "76th scheme" field layout, up from roughly 20 percent as recently as early 2025. Because the cotton harvest alone mobilizes an estimated two million seasonal workers each year, this shift carries direct implications for rural labor demand in a sector that, despite three decades of decline, still accounts for about a quarter of national employment. This paper situates Uzbekistan's mechanization drive within the induced-innovation framework of Hayami and Ruttan and the dual-economy tradition of Lewis, arguing that mechanization in Uzbekistan is being induced primarily by policy and financing rather than by an organic rise in rural wages, which complicates the standard assumption that displaced labor will be smoothly absorbed elsewhere. Drawing on official and secondary sources on the 2025-2026 mechanization program, the paper examines the scale of expected labor displacement, the sectors positioned to absorb displaced seasonal workers, and the risk that mechanization proceeds faster than complementary reallocation mechanisms - non-farm rural employment, labor migration, and social protection - can adjust. The paper concludes with a policy agenda centered on sequencing mechanization with rural non-farm job creation and strengthening seasonal-worker transition support.