1. Sustainable Agriculture in Aghali: The Smart Village Concept in the Great Return to Karabakh
- Author:
- Nazrin Baghirova
- Publication Date:
- 01-2023
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Baku Dialogues
- Institution:
- ADA University
- Abstract:
- On 31 December 2022, Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev delivered his annual televised address on the occasion of the Day of Solidarity of World Azerbaijanis and the New Year. One of his formulations serves as the political background to this essay: “the Great Return program is being successfully implemented. […] I am confident that hundreds of thousands of former displaced persons will return to their homeland in the nearest future.” The Great Return is a flagship state project to repopulate and rejuvenate the Karabakh and East Zangezur Economic Regions, which were liberated by Azerbaijan in 2020 thanks to its victory in the Second Karabakh War. This essay will examine how repatriated farmers can optimally utilize agricultural lands and water, gain access to equipment, fertilizers, and pesticides, and examine how they can gain access to agricultural retail markets thanks to technological innovation. The essay will focus on a pilot project being implemented in one part of Azerbaijan’s liberated lands, namely the Zangilan district, which is one of the five districts that since the administrative reforms of July 2021 belongs the East Zangezur Economic Region. A milestone was achieved on 27 May 2022, when Aliyev participated in the official opening of a “smart village” project in the village of Aghali located in Zangilan (the quotation that serves as this essay’s epigraph was pronounced by the president on that occasion). This ceremony marked the completion of the first stage of a green resettlement project that included 200 fully constructed residential buildings, the introduction of public services (ASAN services, banks, post office, hospital), a “smart” secondary school with a capacity for 360 pupils, a “smart” kindergarten for 60 children, modern infrastructure, a high-speed internet connection, and the Gilmed sewing factory. The state has also allotted agricultural fields to each household. (In the next phase of the project, the state plans to further expand the village and build 150 more homes, including two- and three-story apartment buildings.)
- Topic:
- Agriculture, Territorial Disputes, Conflict, Resettlement, and Sustainability
- Political Geography:
- Armenia, Azerbaijan, South Caucasus, and Nagorno-Karabakh