Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[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."

[Surferbeetle]

Joshua Foust at Registan provides a link a a US Forces Facebook page: U.S. Forces - Afghanistan: Midwest grain bins going to Afghan farmers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 17, 2009

By U.S. Army 1st Lt. Lory Stevens
Task Force Warrior Public Affairs Office

BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan – Members of the Task Force Warrior Agri-Business Development Team visited several villages in Afghanistan’s Kapisa province, July 13, to assess completed grain bins that once occupied farmlands in Imperial, Neb. The bins have been relocated and reconstructed to help Afghan farmers with grain storage issues.

“These completed grain bins are the first in Afghanistan, and serve as an excellent way for farmers to store their grain,” said ADT Agronomist, U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Eldon Kuntzelman, who first thought of the idea to ship grain bins to Afghanistan, June 2008, during pre-deployment preparations.

Rooting around on the Facebook page also leads to: U.S. Forces - Afghanistan: Provincial Governor Unveils District Development Plan in Garmsir

Story by Gunnery Sgt. Christopher Cox
Regimental Combat Team 3

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan

The most noteworthy event though, according to the battalion commander, has been the activity around "Drop 8," a sluice gate along the Helmand River now acting as the primary entrance for all the irrigation in the district.

"There was a problem with silt building up," he explained. "But working together with the district governor and elders, we were able to solve the problem within one week.

"It's a great example for the people to see the government of Afghanistan working to meet their needs," Cabaniss said.

[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.