Wheat is the number-one staple crop in Afghanistan, and maize is the third. Together they occupy 80 percent of the area planted to annual crops. A central aim of CIMMYT in Afghanistan is to make improved, high quality seed of both crops available to farmers, along with appropriate crop management technologies. To date, CIMMYT has:

• Distributed 300 tons of quality seed of the locally-adapted wheat MH-97 to 9,000 farmers in four provinces of Afghanistan
• Produced and delivered tons of breeder's and foundation maize seed
• Planted 35 wheat variety trials at 6 sites and 24 maize trials at 8 sites to identify additional materials suited to farmers' needs
• Trained Afghan researchers through courses in-country and at CIMMYT in Mexico

CIMMYT has collaborated with Afghan researchers for over three decades-even during the war. Thanks to the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and the FAO, Afghan researchers maintained contact with the Turkey-CIMMYT-ICARDA International Winter Wheat Improvement Program (IWWIP) and continued to select the best new wheats from international nurseries. All winter and facultative wheat cultivars currently registered in Afghanistan are derived from those nurseries.

A new project, “Wheat and Maize Productivity Improvement in Afghanistan,” funded by ACIAR and others, has included collaborative work with farmers and non-government and international organizations to verify, in farmers' fields, the performance and acceptability of improved wheat and maize varieties. In Parwan Province, for example, the wheat variety 'Sohla,' yielded well and showed superior resistance to diseases like rust. A participatory technology development approach implemented by the Aga Khan Foundation brings farmers to research stations to observe yield trials of promising varieties and identify wheat lines for advancement and subsequent release. Farmer testing of open-pollinated maize varieties resulted in the identification of two— Rampur 9433 and PozaRica 8731—as promising, and project participants are working to make seed available with the help of local organizations and informal farmer-to-farmer distribution networks. CIMMYT has conducted five capacity-building workshops since 2000.

photo caption: An Afghan farmer holds up an ear of maize, one of CIMMYT's varieties "doing wonders" in Kunduz province.