INTERVIEW WITH DR. CHARLES MAY

Interview with Dr. Charles May, Chief of Party on the USAID Ag Links Project

August 11, 2011

for the Autumn, 2011 AmCham Business Connections magazine

by Tatyana Bystrushkina (AmCham Executive Director) and Dale Henry (Chairman, AmCham Agriculture and Food Processing Subcommittee under the Trade &Investment Committee)

When it was decided that the autumn issue would be dedicated to agricultural sector of Uzbekistan all sources advised to  speak with Charles A.May, real professional and very warm man with great personality.

Charles May has built his career engineering economic growth in developing countries by increasing both private and public sector productivity, employment opportunities, trade and the value of agricultural commodities. He has 25 years of experience implementing USAID projects in the areas of competitiveness, international trade, and food and resource economics in West and Southern Africa, Central Asia and the Caribbean. Dr. May is also a proven manager having served as Chief of Party for 17 years on USAID efforts in Mali, Burkina, Haiti, Senegal, Malawi, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan; and as a consultant providing technical leadership and coordination for teams working in trade and financial policy development, programmatic design, and monitoring and evaluation in Mali, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Niger, Ethiopia, and Burkina. Moreover, Dr. May brings previous experience successfully directing large, complex programs across multipleoffices.

Q:Please tell us a little about yourself and how you have come to work for this project?

A: As an Agricultural Economist, I have spent most of my career working on development projects, especially in Francophone West Africa and the Caribbean. I have worked on USAID, World Bank and Gates Foundation funded projects. Just prior to this move to open up the Ag Links Project in Uzbekistan I was the Chief of Party for the regional Ag Links Project headquartered in Bishkek.   

Q: You are managing a good project which has a really good reputation among farmers and the government. So tell us about some of your strategies.

A: We started our project in 2008 under a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources (MAWR) of Uzbekistan. We operate in four regions of Uzbekistan: Namangan, Fergana, Samarkand and Tashkent.

Our target crops are stone fruits (peaches, cherries, apricots and plums), pome fruits (apples, pears and quince) and table grapes, which are high value crops. Uzbekistan has both a competitive and a comparative advantage in these crops.  These crops also thrive in the United States, so we have an excellent information base on their production and post-harvest handling.

The Russian market is Uzbekistan’s main export target. Russia is the second or third largest market for fruit by value in the world and the biggest importer for some particular crops, such as pears.  Their economy imported 5 million metric tons of fruit in 2009 valued at $4 billion and is expected to grow to 7 million metric tons by 2015.   There are real growth opportunities that take advantage of the traditional historical links to Russia and other CIS countries. And Uzbek products have a very strong brand.Local fruits are known for their sweetness, which comes from the250 days of sunshine Uzbekistan gets a year. Demand for Uzbek fruit is so high that fruit imported from elsewhere is even falsely advertised as being from Uzbekistan. In 2010, fruit and vegetable imports from Uzbekistan to Russia were the third highest at 300 million USD.

We work with three categories of actors in the fruit value chain: 1) producers, 2) processors and 3) government institutions that support this sector.

The bulk of our time is devoted to the producers. Early on we realized there were many challenges faced by producers at the initial stage of the value chain, mainly due to a lack of access to modern information.  Roughly 75 % of what we do is provide information, training and demonstrations on up-to-date, scientifically based production methods.  We have seen over the last two years that the government of Uzbekistan is taking an increasing interest in the development of this sector by importing new varieties in terms of saplings and rootstocks, and strengthening their agricultural research institutes.

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