Human Terrain & Anthropology (merged thread)

[marct]

What I have seen of the bulletin so far reinforces my impression that the U.S. military and civilian contingents in Afghanistan seem to be fairly ignorant as to the basics of agriculture. (That's not a criticism. In my experience few Americans know much about where the food they eat comes from.) Am I way off base here?

That matches my impression, and in more areas than just agriculture. Still working through the articles, though....

Cheers,

Marc

[ganulv]

but I still find the case study of the village of fig farmers in Kandahar where no one knew rotted manure is fertilizer to be absolutely bizarre. I have to wonder what you would find if you were able to scratch beneath the surface of that one.

[120mm]

but I still find the case study of the village of fig farmers in Kandahar where no one knew rotted manure is fertilizer to be absolutely bizarre. I have to wonder what you would find if you were able to scratch beneath the surface of that one.

You'd find out HTS members are drooling idiots. But that's ok; they fit in with the rest of the US contingent, there.

[ganulv]

You'd find out HTS members are drooling idiots. But that's ok; they fit in with the rest of the US contingent, there.

In all seriousness, that they happened upon a settlement full of people who farm for a living where no one knows how to manure their fields and didn't go beyond teaching them about organic fertilizer speaks volumes to me. In that kind of situation I would think that either a) they haven't been farming for a living for long and start trying to figure out if there is a recent history of population movement and/or a "development" project or b) the folks in that settlement were actually doing something else for a living. Pursuing those possibilities might really reveal a lot (whether or not ISAF and GIRoA would like the things revealed is another question).

It all could just be a problem with the text. Who knows what got edited out? And I'm not pretending I know the constraints involved with the case. But still, the article leaves me scratching my head.