Shadow Farms and Ghost Subsidies: The Audit Rocking Azerbaijan's Agriculture

Azerbaijan's Agriculture is in trouble. A new report from the Chamber of Accounts is making a lot of noise. This report is about the money the government gives to farmers to help them. It looks like a lot of this money is being wasted.

The people who did the report looked at what happened from 2022 to 2025. They found out that hundreds of millions of manats were given to farmers for projects that do not even exist. They used pictures from space to see if the land was being used. What they found was shocking. 117,000 Hectares of land were getting money for being farmed but the pictures showed that nothing was being grown there.

This is a problem. Over 24 million manats were given to 19 farmers for land that was not being used. The report also found out that some farmers were getting money for crops they did not even grow. This means that the government is losing a lot of money. More than 10 million manats were paid for land that was not harvested.

The Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Credit and Development Agency are also in trouble. The report found out that their systems for checking what is going on are not working. Some farmers were able to get money by selling things to themselves. This is not right. The government also gave over 300 million manats to people's personal debit cards, which makes it hard to keep track of the money.

The report also found out that the Ministry of Agriculture's records do not match the official records. This means that the government does not really know what is going on. They might have given out much money for crops like cotton and tobacco. Even the insurance fund for farmers got caught up in this mess. They paid out 2 million manats for land that was not being used.

The Ministry of Agriculture says they might try to get this money back. The Chamber of Accounts has already given some files to the Prosecutor General's Office. This report shows that the system for helping farmers is not working. It has been this way since 2007. The government needs to make sure they are keeping track of the money and that it is being used for the right things. If not, the money will just disappear. Azerbaijan's Agriculture needs to be fixed. The government is planning to give more money to farmers in 2025, but they need to make sure it is being used correctly.