Uzbek cotton — "white gold"

Cotton is called "oq oltin" — "white gold" — in Uzbekistan, which produced about a million tonnes of fibre a year and ranked among the world's top ten producers.

In Soviet times cotton monoculture drained the Amu Darya and Syr Darya and led to the drying of the Aral Sea. For years millions of people, including schoolchildren and students, were forced into the harvest, and global companies boycotted Uzbek cotton.

After reforms, in 2022 the International Labour Organization declared the industry free of systemic forced and child labour, and the boycott was lifted. Today cotton is mostly processed in the country's own textile mills.