U.S. sees agriculture key to stabilising Afghanistan
Posted: 11/01/2010 - 15:24
• Rebuilding agriculture can boost confidence in Afghanistan's fragile government and pull farmers away from the drug
money that fuels the Taliban insurgency, the U.S. agriculture chief said on Sunday.
The Obama administration sees agriculture as the biggest non-security priority in Afghanistan, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who arrived in Kabul on Sunday for a three-day trip aimed at showing U.S. commitment to the sector.
"Agriculture is at a critical intersection in our efforts to try to stabilise Afghanistan. If we are able to assist them in doing that, it also builds confidence in their government," Vilsack told reporters.
With 80 percent of income generated from agriculture and only half of the country's arable land currently used, Vilsack said there was "tremendous upside" although he conceded the challenges were huge.
The hope is that opium farmers who get cash from the Taliban for their crops will be enticed by high-value products such as growing table grapes, nuts and pomegranates, which could then be exported.
"If we can do that and when we do that, we make it far more difficult for those who create trouble and difficulty both for the central government in Afghanistan and for the region and the world," he said.
U.S. estimates showed an Afghan farmer made about $2,500 per hectare from the sale of poppies but the same amount of land devoted to pomegranates could pull in about $12,000, he said.
The Bush administration encouraged poppy eradication in Afghanistan, the world's biggest supplier of the source material for heroin, but the Obama White House has played down that strategy, saying all it did was alienate farmers without offering alternatives to growing illicit crops.
Soruce : Reuters India
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