Afghanistan expects biggest wheat harvest in 32 years |
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Written by Jobs in Afghanistan
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 Afghanistan is projected this year to collect its biggest wheat harvest in 32 years, taking the impoverished country to near self-sufficiency in the staple crop, the agriculture minister said Tuesday.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) expects a bumper harvest that is 63 percent higher than that of last year, mainly because of good rains, Agriculture Minister Asif Rahimi told reporters.
Other factors were a 20 percent increase in farmland devoted to wheat — a result of last year’s high prices for the crop — and the provision to farmers of seeds and fertilisers, he said.
“The wheat harvest this year will be record high for the past 32 years if the projection proves to be accurate,” Rahimi said.
This yield would mean Afghanistan would have to buy in only 200,000 metric tonnes of wheat compared to 2.1 million tonnes last year, he said.
And it would make Afghanistan only 10 percent short of self sufficiency in wheat for the year, the minister said.
Afghanistan has been embroiled in conflict for the past three decades with the war sending thousands of farmers into exile and farmlands and irrigation systems destroyed in battle or ruined by neglect.
The World Food Programme purchases wheat every year to provide food for needy Afghans.
The ouster of the extremist Taliban regime in a US-led invasion in late 2001 led to an international effort to rebuild the war-battered country.
Agriculture has this year been a development priority with about 80 percent of Afghans estimated to live in rural areas that remain destitute despite a flood of international aid dollars.
FAO representative Tekeste Tekie told the press conference that Afghanistan needed six million metric tonnes of wheat every year. The population is estimated at 26-30 million although there has never been a census.
Tekie said his agency’s studies showed production this year would reach 6.3 million metric tonnes. However, “there may be 15 percent losses in harvesting and in storing”, he said.
“If we reduce our harvest losses on the field and in the storing... there will be no shortage or the shortage will be very minimal,” he said. |
