Transforming Uzbekistan's Cotton Industry

About this episode

Farmon Asadov shares his experiences as a forced labourer in Uzbekistan's cotton industry and discusses the historical and economic implications of this system.

There is a big difference between doing things we might not like, being assigned a task at work not to your particular liking, and being forced into a job by your government. And there is just a radical a difference between reading about forced labour in a textbook and speaking with someone who had experienced it first-hand. Farmon Asadov is now a PhD researcher at Lancaster University, but before that he spent time as a forced labourer within Uzbekistan’s cotton industry. Farmon is here to tell us about his experiences in a country that only moved away from widespread forced labour in the last decade. He also enlightens us the history of his country, why cotton has been such an important pillar of the Uzbek economy, and the intensive labour system that involved two million people being corralled by the government for each year’s harvest. But most importantly, Farmon tells us how as a student he was sent to remote camps to carry out the cotton harvest, receiving little to no reward, and all framed as being his patriotic duty. We hear about the long hours of hard labour in intense heat, the sometimes-impossible quota targets they were set, and the punishments for not meeting them…

People in this episode

Guest: Farmon Asadov

Topics covered

• forced labour
• cotton industry
• Uzbekistan
• economic history
• labour rights

Keywords

• forced labour
• cotton
• Uzbekistan
• labour system
• economic history
• harvest
• patriotic duty

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lancaster University

Places: Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan’s cotton industry

More episodes of Transforming Tomorrow

• Regional Development, Inequalities and Entrepreneurship · June 8, 2026 · 44 min
• The Net Zero Healthcare Mission · June 1, 2026 · 49 min
• How To Be a Socially Responsible Company · May 25, 2026 · 48 min
• Prioritising Planetary Health · May 18, 2026 · 42 min
• Do You Know Your Employment Rights? · May 11, 2026 · 41 min
• When Scientists Become Activists · May 4, 2026 · 39 min