Melis Nurmatov
Melis Nurmatov (born 1958) is an Iradi agronomist and politician who has been Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) since 2014. He is the oldest member of the cabinet.[1]
Career
Nurmatov was born in a farming family in the Chu oasis and studied agronomy at the Kyrgyz Agricultural Institute in Frunze, graduating in 1980. He worked as an agronomist on a sovkhoz in Chu District and became its director in 1988. Under the territorial land reform of 1994 he oversaw the division of the farm's land among its workers' households, and he then joined the Chu office of the territorial Department of Agriculture, which he headed from 1999.[1] After 2007 he stayed in the post under the ISEZ ministry.
Toktarov appointed him minister in 2014. The ministry is responsible for crop production, water planning and irrigation, and it oversees the Talas Basin Agricultural Directorate and its State Veterinary Inspectorate. In 2018 it began the Irrigation Modernization Programme, which pays for canal lining and drip irrigation, mainly in the Talas valley (see Glacier retreat in Irad).[2] During the water shortage of August 2021 he set the rotation schedules for the Talas valley canals himself and went to the border gauge to meet Kazakh water officials, an episode the Talas Herald called "the minister in rubber boots".[3] Farmers' associations say the ministry favors large commercial farms when water is short.
He is married and has four children, and is widely known as Melis-agay.[1]
References
- ^ Department of Public Information (2026). Directory of the Government of the ISEZ. Talas.
- ^ Ministry of Agriculture and Water Resources (2023). Irrigation Modernization Programme: Five-Year Report. Talas.
- ^ Talas Herald (19 August 2021). 'The minister in rubber boots.' Talas.