BALKH, Afghanistan - Majid can hardly believe his good fortune. He harvested so
much wheat this year that he can feed his family and even sell a few kilograms
in Mazar-e-Sharif, the economic capital of northern Afghanistan.
Last year, things were different in his home province of Samangan. The wheat
harvest failed due to a lack of rain - a catastrophe, since flour is needed to
make the staple of Afghan food, nan, or flat bread.
This year things are much different. Farmers in Samangan harvested 140,000
tonnes of wheat, a seven-fold increase over the 20,000 tons they got last year,
says Noor Mohammad, the chief
of the agriculture department in Samangan.
"We even have a surplus of 50,000 tonnes," he said. "We have asked the
agriculture ministry and the World Food Program to purchase the surplus so
people will be able to make a profit."
The harvest has been plentiful all over northern Afghanistan, which is the main
supplier of wheat for the rest of the country. After years of drought brought
failed harvests and food crises, in which dozens of people died, this year
there was finally good news. It is called rain.
Around 90% of the farmland in the north is in mountainous areas, irrigated by
rain in the spring and snow in the winter. Agricultural experts say that with
better seeds and a better system of irrigation, Afghanistan should be able to
feed itself. However, the agricultural sector has been devastated by years of
civil war and was neglected in the reconstruction phase after the fall of the
Taleban.
The long spells of drought in the last few years had a huge impact on the
north, with many farmers leaving rural areas for the cities. The ones who
stayed behind barely survived, or starved. There are accounts of people trying
to sell their children to buy food. The bad wheat harvest in the north also
affected the rest of the country.
The resulting high wheat price was a major incentive for farmers to grow more
wheat this year, helped by the distribution of seeds by aid organizations. Then
came the rain, a lot of it. Not all of the effects were positive: there were
floods and some people lost their houses and even their lives.
But the rains brought in the harvest. People now have enough food, and far
fewer are leaving for the city.
"Last year I had to keep going back to aid organizations for food," said
Mohammad Rasool, the representative of the Kohistan District Development
Council in Sar-e-Pul province. "But this year people don't ask me for wheat,
they ask me for schools, clinics and roads."
He remembers very well the disastrous situation last year, when there wasn't
enough food in the province. He cited one case where a 16-year-old girl who had
a food coupon from the Ministry of Refugee Affairs was forced to have sex with
powerful men in return for a 49-kilogram sack of wheat.
This year, the wheat harvest in the province has increased by 80% compared with
last year, says Amanullah Amin, director at the Ministry of Agriculture,
Irrigation and Livestock. This has resulted in a sharp decrease in the price:
last year a ser (seven kilos) cost 250 afghani (US$5). This year the
same amount fetches between 100-120 afghani.
"But at least the farmers have wheat left over to sell," Amin said.
The overall situation is so favorable that Afghanistan this year will import
only 200,000 tonnes of wheat, says Gholam Mostafa Jawad, deputy minister of
commerce. "Last year, we had to buy 1.2 million tonnes of wheat. Now we are
purchasing wheat from our own farmers."
In Balkh province, farmers are optimistic. Apart from the abundance of rain, a
campaign against locusts has also helped, says Kateb Shams, the director of the
agriculture directorate in Balkh. He praises the advantages of growing wheat
over other crops, and says it is cheaper to grow it in rain-fed areas because
then the field needs to be ploughed and seeded only once, and there is no need
for fertilizer.
The good harvest has had a great impact on people's lives, say people in Balkh.
Niaz Mir says he doesn't have any farmland, but that the jobs in harvesting are
much better paid than before because there is more wheat to get from the land.
"We can take home seven kilos of wheat for every 21 kilos that we harvested,"
he said. "I don't have to buy any wheat for the coming winter."
Abdul Latif Sahak is an IWPR-trained reporter in Balkh.
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