Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[davidbfpo]

An excellent article on development work in Afghanistan, I concede there maybe some spin at work here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magaz...e-let-it.thtml

A Google search on the author Clare Lockhart found she's been on the Charlie Rose show, which appears to be a badge of success.

davidbfpo

[ODB]

Funny you mention that, just saw a show a few weeks ago about that. Pretty amazing stuff. I relate the issues in Afghanistan to our very own dust bowl years. The farming was done incorrect, caused massive erosion and dust storms. The debate has been made that through inproper/over cultivation enhanced the drought of the dust bowl years. I'm no where near an expert on these things, but it kind of makes sense to me.

Droughts occur frequently in the areas affected by desertification, and are generally a feature of their natural climate. The relations between desertification and drought on the one hand, and human influence on the other, are complex. Occasional droughts (due to seasonal or inter-year variations in rainfall) and long-term droughts covering wide areas are both caused or aggravated by the influence of man on the environment (the reduction in vegetation cover, the change in the Albedo effect, changes in the local climate, the greenhouse effect, etc.). Human influence can also hasten desertification and aggravate the negative consequences on man. But the degradation of land due to desertification has a serious compounding effect on drought, and thereby reduces the chances of the local people to cope with difficult periods.

http://www.fao.org/sd/EPdirect/EPan0005.htm

My question with cloud seeding is are we in effect robbing Peter to pay Paul. We seed the clouds in the southwest which then reduces the rain in the central US? Seems there is some speculation that this is what happens but no one really knows for sure.

[Surferbeetle]

ODB,

Back in my younger days I used to hike near one of I.M. Pei's buildings where a bunch of big brain folks were asking the atmospheric questions that you are posing. Much later, during my ag engineering course I had to spend a fair amount of time figuring out the correct nozzle sizing for center pivot sprinkler systems and how to properly tilt fields in order to optimally distribute the water...its more complex than it looks and it pushed me hard in my spreadsheet modeling abilities. I do have a friend however, who was a supercomputer driver and who has worked on some atmospheric modeling issues; I will ask him what he thinks about Afghanistan when I see him next.

In the meantime this link on laser levelingof fields might be of interest and besides it makes me chuckle to think about both trying to fit one of these rigs into the back of Chinook and how it would be received when we landed.

Davidbfpo,

Thanks for the link from the Spectator, it was a good read. Oxfam has an interesting link that I ran across today

Oxfam America is working to increase the effectiveness of US foreign aid by placing the voices and priorities of poor people at the center of aid policy and practice. Through analytical and field research, we will bring out the hopes and concerns of intended beneficiaries, implementing partners, aid professionals, other donors, and host governments.

I have very much enjoyed working with the majority of the NGO's and other groups I bump into 'downrange'. There are lots of good ideas and dedicated people out there. Some of the older folks (and I am not as young as I used to be as my college age kids continually advise me...) are pretty wise and have been kind enough to show me a tip or two. I was in a chai bar in Mosul once and struck up a conversation with a gentleman who was easily 20 years my senior, still getting things done on the security side, and I greatly appreciated his insights.

Ken,

Thanks for the info. My library is pretty thin when it comes to CINC info. I have a single first hand account written by GEN Zinni/Tom Clancy/Tony Koltz entitled Battle Ready (ISBN 0-399-15176-1) which I go back to from time to time. Some of my friends down the street at the 3/325 did Provide Comfort which he covers in the book. USAID/DOS wise it's all FM's and experience. The CRS link was a good read. As a taxpayer I really like those CRS reports, we are getting our moneys worth on that one.

Regards,

Steve

[Surferbeetle]

From the AP by NICOLE WINFIELD US announces big shift in Afghanistan drug policy

The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told the AP that the U.S. eradication programs were only driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban.

"Eradication is a waste of money," Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a Group of Eight foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.

"It might destroy some acreage, but it didn't reduce the amount of money the Taliban got by one dollar. It just helped the Taliban. So we're going to phase out eradication," he said. The Afghan foreign minister also attended the G-8 meeting.

Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. While opium cultivation dropped 19 percent last year, it remains concentrated in Afghanistan's southern provinces where the Taliban is strongest and earned insurgents an estimated $50 million to $70 million last year, according to the U.N. drug office.

To fight it, he (U.N. drug chief Antonio Maria Costa) said major powers had to expand their counter-drug efforts to neighboring Pakistan as well as Iran, where half the 7,000 tons of exported Afghan opium transits, "causing the highest addiction rate in the world."

[Surferbeetle]

Stoned wallabies make crop circles

Funny...

Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around "as high as a kite", a government official has said.

...interesting...

Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.

[Surferbeetle]

From the AKO website by Sgt. Doug Roles, 56th SBCT: Space technology assists Iraqi irrigation inventory project

BAGHDAD (June 30, 2009) -- Soldiers from the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team's geospatial intelligence section are playing a role in helping Iraqi leaders prepare to expand irrigation and farming throughout Iraq.

The Soldiers are teaching 20 Iraqi technicians on data processing procedures they will use to inventory the Iraqi farmland and irrigation infrastructure.

Sgt. 1st Class Marvin Nichols and Pfc. Amanda Po, both with Headquarters Company, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, are presenting a geospatial systems workshop to Ministry of Water Resources and Ministry of Agriculture officials in the International Zone. The course, that began June 21, will continue throughout the week.

The workshop shows technicians how to compile data, gathered recently by field technicians, to measure canal layouts and amounts of acreage used for growing various crops.

"Basically they're looking for an accurate, fast way of processing this information," said Nichols, the brigade's senior geospatial intelligence engineer.

Nichols explained that the ministries will use the raw data to begin a cost analysis of improvement projects. Many parts of the canal system are over 30 years old and are in various states of disrepair.

The Stryker Soldiers got involved in the data-gathering effort after previously assisting the U.S. Agency for International Development/Tatweer program by preparing maps of a roughly 35-square-kilometer area, between Taji and Baghdad. That area, south of the grand canal, is the pilot area for the irrigation inventory.

The Tatweer, an Arabic word meaning development, provides support to the ministries for capacity development in public management.

[Surferbeetle]

From the AKO website by Staff Sgt. Stacia Zachary: Agri-business development team plants seeds of hope for Afghan people

FORWARD OPERATING BASE FINLEY-SHIELDS, Afghanistan -- At war in a country that has been devastated by centuries of fighting, the U.S. military is committed to helping Afghanistan attain a functional level of prosperity and self-sustainability through improved agricultural methods.

Teams of National Guardsmen from Missouri and 11 other farm-belt states are deploying to Afghanistan on year-long tours to assist in this effort. The Guardsmen bring with them more specialized skills than those of the usual advisory panels that typically helm projects such as these. This mission calls for military members with expertise in farming, raising livestock and cultivating natural resources.

The U.S. military recognized the necessity of such teams in late 2007 when reconstruction teams realized people in rural areas needed something more pressing than a new school or road. Across Afghanistan, these teams have been inundated with requests for help with farming and other agricultural endeavors.

The Nangarhar Province Agri-Business Development Team has focused on facilitating sustainable projects that aid the Afghan people in a manner that results in greater impact and more long-term benefits.

"We have a wide-range of programs geared at helping the Afghan people gain better farming practices and that often means providing basic systems such as wells and karizes to irrigate the crops," said Maj. Denise Wilkinson, ADT executive officer who is deployed from the Missouri Joint Force Headquarters. "We have projects with large budgets, but we have found that it's the small projects at little cost that have the biggest impact on the people who need our help the most."

Currently, the Nangarhar ADT has 74 active projects totaling $5.6 million.

Projects the team manages include:

- Building grain mills.
- Introducing new wheat seed.
- Developing canning and juicing factories for harvested vegetables and fruits.
- Building cool storage facilities to store harvested crops operated by solar panels.
- Overseeing micro-slaughter facilities to increase sanitization of livestock meat.
- Launching vet clinics focused on de-worming the livestock.
- Advising with reforestation projects.
- Increasing the crop yield for commercial use.
- Operating cold- and warm-water fish hatcheries.

"The real intent here is to show them how to harness the resources they've got," said Master Sgt. Richard Frink, a native of Carthage, Mo. "Once we do, you'll see a lot of change for the better, because they can take care of themselves."