Time to Do More for Afghanistan

The researchers who chose the name for an improved wheat variety - Solh-02 (meaning "peace") - released in Afghanistan during 2003 had a pretty good idea of the true meaning of this word for the country's mostly rural people. More than a cessation of hostilities, peace also means a chance to revitalize agriculture, which provides livelihoods for some 80 percent of the population. Agricultural reconstruction in a nation so thoroughly ravaged by war requires, among other things, a systematic effort to restore agricultural research, focused on achieving sustainable improvement in farm productivity. That is what the Centers supported by the CGIAR offer the country, based on a long history of collaboration with Afghanistan and its neighbors.

Bread, Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan

View Photo Album "Agriculture in Afghanistan"

Investing in peace

To get an idea of the power of such collaboration, one need look no further than Central Asia. A program that marshals the talents of nine Centers, under the coordination of the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), together with numerous national partners, has developed dozens of new agricultural technologies for the region, which farmers have adopted on a large scale. For its intensive 10-year effort to rejuvenate food production in the region, the program received the CGIAR's 2008 King Baudouin Award.

Particularly urgent are renewed efforts to enhance water-use efficiency (e.g., through rainwater harvesting); diversity cropping systems (e.g., by promoting cereal-legume and food-forage mixtures); improve seed supplies; introduce environmentally prudent production practices, such as conservation agriculture and integrated pest management; and promote the development of viable agro-enterprises. Critical for the success of those efforts is a major long-term commitment to strengthening the capacity of Afghan researchers and extension staff.

Mending the fabric of agriculture

An ambitious program designed to accomplish those aims (called the Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan) was launched with much fanfare in 2002. Coordinated by ICARDA, with support from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the program moved quickly to provide large amounts of emergency seed aid, concentrating first on wheat and then on other crops like barley, chickpea and sesame. It also embarked on the reconstruction of Afghanistan's research capacity, providing training for Afghan researchers, refurbishing experiment stations that had been bombed and looted and replacing lost plant genetic resources from duplicate collections safeguarded in genebanks at ICARDA and elsewhere.

In addition, the program carried out a thorough needs assessment, which identified priority actions in four main areas: (1) crop improvement and seed systems, (2) soil and water management, (3) livestock and rangelands, and (4) horticulture. The assessment reflected both the marked diversity of Afghanistan's agriculture and the striking degree to which its rich fabric had been frayed and torn.

In the absence of support for concerted efforts in all of those areas, the program has focused mainly on the improvement of crops and seed systems, giving priority to basic staples (wheat, potato maize and rice), while also paying attention to selected high-value species with strong income-earning potential. The appropriateness of this focus on staple crops has been borne out by the recent food price crisis, though a more comprehensive effort would have been even better.

Food security first

Wheat is the country's most important staple grain, accounting for about 80 percent of the total area planted to cereals. It occupies a central place in the diets of Afghan consumers, whose per capita consumption of the crop is quite high at 180 kilograms.

In the late 1970s, Afghanistan was self-sufficient in wheat, due in part to widespread adoption of varieties from CIMMYT. But after decades of continuous warfare and recurring drought, the country now suffers from periodic shortfalls. With yearly cereal demand at about 5 million tons, production of wheat has ranged from 2.3 to 4.5 million tons in recent years, making it necessary to import grain (at increasing cost) and to rely heavily on food aid.

In 2008, the country's wheat crop was hit hard by drought, resulting in serious grain shortages. The harvest was better in 2009, primarily because of good rains, but much of it was damaged by yellow rust disease. To achieve sustained wheat improvement in Afghanistan over the long term will require a determined effort to make the crop more productive and stable.

Even though more than half of the country's wheat area (which totals 2.5 million hectares) is irrigated, average yields are low at about 2 tons per hectare. Yields of rainfed wheat are particularly depressed, averaging only 0.5 tons per hectare - about a fourth of those obtained elsewhere in the region. The primary constraints have been a lack of improved varieties, limited availability of good-quality seed and fertilizers, inefficient production practices and damaged infrastructure, such as irrigation systems and storage facilities.

Over the last 6 years, CIMMYT and ICARDA have made significant strides toward remedying those problems, with support from the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID) and USAID.

One major contribution was to help restore national capacity to evaluate improved wheat and maize varieties - a task that involved training researchers and technicians from the Agricultural Research Institute of Afghanistan, other national institutions and NGOs. With assistance from CIMMYT and ICARDA, Afghan researchers have identified numerous promising wheat varieties, of which a half dozen have been released, with several more in the pipeline.

Some of the new wheat varieties set for release show resistance both to yellow rust and the Ug99 race of stem rust. Ug99 emerged in eastern Africa a decade ago and has since spread to western Asia, where its presence in Iran was recently confirmed. To detect the possible arrival of Ug99 in Afghanistan, ICARDA scientists have planted "trap nurseries" in many provinces, including those bordering Iran and Pakistan.

The challenge for wheat experts in Afghanistan and throughout Asia is nothing less than to entirely replace susceptible wheats with the locally adapted and highly productive resistant varieties now being developed. Only then will wheat crops be safe from a potentially devastating disease pandemic.

Models of entrepreneurship

Improved seed supplies are critical for generating impact from new crop varieties. While supporting the development of Afghanistan's formal seed system in collaboration with the FAO, the CGIAR Centers are also exploring informal alternatives, such as the village-based seed enterprises being promoted by ICARDA.

In three provinces of eastern Afghanistan, the Center has established a total of 17 of these enterprises, with funding from USAID. Each enterprise consists of 10 to 15 progressive farmers trained to produce and disseminate high-quality seed of improved, locally adapted crop varieties on a commercial scale. To strengthen their bargaining power, the enterprises have been grouped into provincial agricultural companies, endorsed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL). These are proving to be a model of entrepreneurship, distributing large quantities of wheat and other seed at a profit to farmers, government agencies and NGOs. If scaled up, this approach could go far toward closing the large gap between seed demand and supplies in Afghanistan.

Through a complementary initiative, ICARDA, the International Potato Center (CIP) and MAIL, with support from USAID, are working with 15 agricultural cooperatives in Badakhshan Province to develop an efficient system for producing and marketing seed and ware (or eating) potatoes. Seed producer groups have been organized and trained; their potato yields are more than 200 percent higher and their incomes per hectare of potato 60 percent higher than the average.

A high-value test case

Afghanistan's pre-war agriculture was an elaborate tapestry, in which staple crops and livestock were interwoven with a wide variety of horticultural species, such as almonds, apricots, citrus, dates, figs, grapes, olives, peaches, pistachios and walnuts. Until the 1970s, these high-value species accounted for about 40 percent of the country's foreign exchange earnings, whereas now horticultural exports are negligible.

There is much potential to revitalize horticulture in Afghanistan, drawing on the country's important plant genetic resources and using irrigation on its predominantly small farms more efficiently. But to realize that potential, growers will have to contend with heightened global competition and big challenges in terms of product quality and marketing.

One intervention through which ICARDA and MAIL, with USAID support, are fostering high-value agriculture involves the use of plastic greenhouses. So far, more than 300 have been established with support from MAIL's new center for "protected agriculture." According to a recent impact assessment, fresh produce from the greenhouses can generate four times more net income than production in open fields. Protected agriculture offers an especially attractive option for disadvantaged groups in rural communities, including women, returning landless refugees and the disabled.

With the aim of demonstrating what Afghan farmers need and can do to succeed in high-value agriculture, ICARDA and its partners are pursuing several test cases, with support from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID). One of these centers on an integrated package for mint cultivation. Building on traditional practice, the package consists of new varieties tested with farmers, improved agronomic practices and better techniques for producing distillates and oils and for drying fresh mint, together with training, equipment and support in building market links. The system for distillation and packaging, which requires no electricity and little water, was designed and tailored to local conditions in partnership with Iranian entrepreneurs.

The package has been implemented by eight farmers associations in four provinces, involving a total of 100 households and including two all-women's groups. Several hundred more farmers, as well as researchers and extension officers, have received training in mint production and processing. Together, they are transforming mint production from a kitchen garden crop into a commercial enterprise, with plot sizes increasing from 25 square meters to a half hectare. The associations have sold more than 200,000 bottles of herbal distillates and oils as well as more than 70,000 packets of dried products, generating much-needed rural income and employment. Two groups are exporting their products to India, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates. Each participating farm household, many of which formerly produced opium poppies, is earning an average of US$300-500 per month from mint.

Members of the Women Mint Association in Kabul.

Mint is but a single option for enhancing agricultural livelihoods in Afghanistan. Yet, as a test case, it inspires confidence that, with appropriate support, farmers and researchers can find creative ways to mend the torn fabric of Afghanistan's agriculture.

Useful Resources

• ICARDA website
• CIMMYT website
• CIP website
• FAO website