Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[jcustis]

I'm about to drop an AAR in the Afghanistan PTP thread, but I just attended a lecture by Gretchen Peters (author of Seeds of Terror, and she made the point that opium cultivated in Afghanistan would have to go through a shift in collection and production methods in order to come close to the hygienic methods required for medicinal purposes. She also added that unless the whole shebang was subsidized, medicinal opium would not likely garner prices higher than the farmer would get for growing wheat.

I found those points very interesting.

[Surferbeetle]

...standard disclaimers apply.

From the Potters for Peace Website: Low Cost Water Filters made by Locals

Since 1998, Potters for Peace has been assisting in the production worldwide of a low-tech, low-cost, colloidal silver-enhanced ceramic water purifier (CWP). Field experience and clinical test results have shown this filter to effectively eliminate approximately 99.88% of most water born disease agents.

WHY
Every year there are 1.7 million deaths, mainly children under the age of five, due to diarrhea caused by unsafe water. The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goal is to halve the number of people unable to reach or afford safe drinking water by the year 2015. Achieving this would require that at least 125,000 people be connected to safe water supplies each day before the 2015 target.
Incredibly, this problem is still not being realistically addressed, high- tech solutions are proposed, but in general there is no investment in technology that can easily be copied by local workshops in developing countries.
The ultimate objective of the CWP project is to meet this urgent demand for safe water in rural and marginalized communities, and provide employment for local potters.

Potters for Peace is a member of the World Health Organization’s International Network to Promote Household Water Treatment and Safe Storage.

WHAT IS THE CWP
It is a simple, pressed bucket shape 11” wide by 10” deep, made with a mix of local terra-cotta clay and sawdust or other combustible, such as rice husks. The simplest press utilizes a hand-operated hydraulic truck jack and two-piece aluminum mold.
After firing to about 860 deg. C. the filter is coated with colloidal silver. The combination of fine pore size, resulting from milled, screened materials, and the bactericidal properties of colloidal silver produce an effective filter.
A 1.5 to 2.5 liter per hour rate of filtration is determined by the combination of clay/combustible mix and firing temperature.
For use the fired, treated filter element is placed in a five gallon plastic or ceramic receptacle with a lid and faucet. Pricing for ready to use filter units is determined by local production costs and is usually between $10-25 with the basic plastic receptacle. Replacement filter elements will cost $4 to $6. A basic production facility with three or four workers can produce about fifty filters a day.

A low rez pictorial USDA powerpoint presentation on Low Cost Bucket Drip Irrigation. A 5.7 mb file on this topic from the USDA website is located here.

[Surferbeetle]

From the AKO website: U.S. forces foster growth in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (July 22, 2009) -- U.S. forces aided Afghan farmers and villagers recently in operations aimed at cultivating a brighter future in Afghanistan.

Farmers in Panjshir province's Dara district will be able to store their produce from the fall harvest in a temperature-controlled underground facility for the first time, thanks to the efforts of the Panjshir Provincial Reconstruction Team.

The $45,000 project provides farmers with a place to store food either for personal consumption or to sell at markets. Potatoes, watermelon, wheat and other fruits and vegetables can be stored in the facility.

The storage room was built underground for improved temperature control and has a thermal-chimney vent system and a solar-powered ventilation system.

"We're all very excited about what this facility can do for us," said Zubair, a facility maintainer and local farmer. "This will extend the age of our products, especially over the very cold winter."

Panjshir is still without sustainable electricity, which limits food-storage options.

"From what we've learned, fresh fruits and vegetables often go to waste because there isn't a proper way to store them," said Sgt. Daniel Kelley, the team's civil affairs liaison to the Panjshir director of agriculture. "Hopefully, this facility will help the residents of Dara maintain a healthy food source for longer periods of time or even help them earn extra money."

The minister of counternarcotics in Kabul recognized the people of Panjshir for having a poppy-free province, awarding the $1.4 million in January through the Good Performance Initiative. The provincial governor, in turn, committed the money toward agricultural projects that will improve the sustainability of farmers and their crops.

As a result, the reconstruction team has increased its agriculture-related efforts, and now has 14 projects worth $1.6 million, with plans for another eight under way.

[goesh]

- good news all the way around, not much mention of it in the media though - those grain bins are easy to assemble

[Surferbeetle]

From the LA Times by David Zucchino: U.S. Army's farm program tackles Afghan rebuilding from the ground up

In a country where 80% of working-age males are small-scale farmers, such a program might seem central to the rebuilding effort. Yet the U.S. military has just 350 agricultural specialists in a country of 31 million, covering nine of 34 provinces.

Using military discretionary funds, Jones' team operates in an obscure corner separate from America's civilian-funded reconstruction effort, which since 2001 has cost $7.9 billion.

For years, the United States has focused on eradicating opium poppies, by far Afghanistan's leading cash crop and foreign currency earner. Help for millions of subsistence farmers growing wheat, corn and other staples has been a lower priority.

The eradication program, called "a sad joke" by the director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, did nothing to prevent skyrocketing opium production after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Last month, Richard C. Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, called opium eradication "a waste of money" because it puts farmers out of work and drives them toward the Taliban. Holbrooke said eradication efforts would be phased out in favor of arresting major drug traffickers and promoting alternative crops.

Holbrooke also said U.S. civilian agriculture assistance to Afghanistan would increase from tens of millions of dollars a year to hundreds of millions.

[jcustis]

I'm thinking more on the dynamics of agriculture in Afghanistan, and am certainly realizing that it will take more than new, studier, or more valuable cash crops to unlock the grip of opium, but among the staple crops, how are farmers doing?

When I catch pictures of farmland in Helmand or elsewhere, it all seems fairly lush and sturdy from what I can see, but is that all just an inaccurate picture? What efficiencies can be achieved? What projects are/have been underway in that area which has made a noticeable difference?

Right now I have no idea what Helmand's agriculture could use, in terms of micro-projects, to make the ROI better. I know the farmers themselves know, but has anyone come across information that tells the story of what they think they need? If I get anywhere at all involved in LOO work during the next deploy, I suspect it will have a heavy agricultural component.

[goesh]

Does anyone really know the acreage involved in poppy growing? Why not let the farmer grow his opium crop, pay him fair market value then destroy it when it is half grown and can't be salvaged? Farmer gets his money for only half his labor and doesn't hate America. The Taliban has to extort him to replace their opium income that has been destroyed. Major drug dealers are replaced as fast as they go down - its market driven and the money runs up into the echelons of politics, any cop knows that, what Holbrooke means is popping some of the middle men, which looks good in print.