Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[Surferbeetle]

Ken,

As always I learn from your posts and am interested in references if you are willing to share. The DOS/USAID splits are of particular interest as well as the Goldwater Nichols history.

jkm_101_fso 's post(thanks for the link jkm) is significant in several ways.

It's good to see the need for an agricultural surge officially acknowledged. A quick back of the envelope calculation tells me that if your average Afghani Farmer works for 6 months, takes every Friday off, and only works eight hours a day (most farmers work more), then he would be spending 1248 hours focused on improving his, his family's, and his nation's condition through agriculture as opposed to spending this time engaged in warfare. Depending upon the size of the force opposing us as well as the number of folks needed to push the country to stability, the total number of hours at stake is not insignificant. It would be wise of us to help the Afghani's to spend these hours on agriculture.

From the article I gather that 6 ADT's will be deployed to a country that has ~ 20 million arable acres. The ADT's are not alone

John Santas, an associate director of international agricultural programs at the University of Illinois, and Myers, a not-so-retired professor of plant genetics at SIUC, are heading a new project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development to revitalize agricultural education in Afghanistan as part of postwar reconstruction efforts.

From a practical standpoint as one who has been dropped off in the boonies with a couple of duffle bags and told 'figure it out' I still have questions:

1) Who's in charge of the Ag Effort?
2) Will DOD, DOS, USAID, USACE, & Coalition Forces support this?
3) How is it prioritized and resourced?
4) How are we tying ADT's, PRT's, Universities, NGO's, IO's, and Coalition forces together?
5) What are the metrics for 2009 (ie how many tons of wheat, cotton, pomegranates etc.)?
6) Who is the CIO and what are the digital languages we will speak during this effort?

As I look for answers to these and other questions I am struck by the diMe as opposed to DIME emphasis. Once again it seems we (M=Military) are going to be planning, blocking, and carrying the ball while most everybody else will be smoking and joking on the bench.

Going back to the article, if we keep doing the same things I predict that we can except the same perceptions and outcomes.

Regards,

Steve