DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, Jan 29, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - The leader of climate-
vulnerable Tajikistan has called on his nation -- already affected by 
undernourishment -- to stock up on food due to the effects of changing 
weather.

Tajikistan is an impoverished ex-Soviet mountainous country in Central Asia 
that is one of the world's worst-affected by climate change.

"I stress that every family in the country should have a stockpile of 
necessary food products for up to two years," President Emomali Rakhmon said 
in a speech during a Tajik traditional holiday late on Sunday. 

"In connection to the changing and warming of the climate, the social-
economic situation in the modern world is getting worse with every day," he 
said. 

"In these difficult and unpredictable conditions of the modern world, we 
should work more effectively and use the earth and water with sense," he 
added. 

According to the World Food Programme, 30 percent of Tajikistan's nine 
million people suffer from undernourishment. 

The organisation links this to "soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, melting 
glaciers and extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, avalanches and 
landslides" that it says "regularly destroy land, crops, infrastructure and 
livelihoods."

Around half of Tajikistan's food is imported due to the fragile climate 
situation, the group said, with rising prices hitting the poorest Tajiks.

More than half of Tajikistan's population works in the agricultural sector, 
according to the World Bank.

Tajikistan has also suffered from knock-on effects from the war in Ukraine, 
as its main economic partner is Russia, which has ben hit with huge Western 
sanctions over the conflict.

Rakhmon -- who does not tolerate real political opposition -- is regularly 
greeted by piles of fruit when he travels across the country.