It is estimated that 97% of agricultural land in Tajikistan has some level of erosion. Land degradation caused from erosion due to overgrazing is estimated to affect approximately 3 million hectares, or 85% of pastures (Asian Development Bank, 2004). Agriculture is the main employer as majority of the population depends on agriculture for their livelihood. A recent UN Environment-UNDP Poverty-Environment Initiative (PEI)study estimates the economic cost of land degradation associated with foregone production on degraded and unused agricultural land to be in the order of 1,946 million Somoni (US$442 million) – 7.8% of Tajikistan’s GDP (2010). However, the actual cost is likely to be much higher than this as it does not take into account the off-site costs of land degradation, such as damage to infrastructure. If the value of this foregone production was evenly distributed among rural households, this would be resulting a benefit of US$583 per household per year (based on an estimate of 757,608 rural households).
