Harvest unlikely to help most vulnerable

This year's harvest in the fertile valleys of the northern provinces will help determine whether the region begins to slowly recover from drought or slips further into crisis, threatening up to one million people with starvation. Although recent snow and rain has left Afghan farmers optimistic this year, reflected in the amount of land under cultivation, agricultural experts say that the region will take years to recover from the last two droughts. With the acute shortage of seeds and resources, many people were unable to plant winter seeds and will remain dependent on limited international relief aid this year. Greg Scollard, drought coordinator with Save the Children-USA (SCF), told IRIN that their surveys in Faryab Province, northwestern Afghanistan, indicate that only 30 percent of farmers have planted winter seeds, while the rest held off until the recent rains. “The region is still drought affected although the rains have had a high impact on rain-fed areas and so those who delayed are now planting for spring,” he said. Although the precipitation so far was good, it was not enough. Rains were also needed in March and April for the harvest to be successful in rain-fed areas, he said. Scollard was encouraged by the fact that in the irrigated areas west of Mazar wheat was already 20 cm high. “This is a good sign, but this region has seen two years of drought and one season will not take care of the problems. It has made people totally dependent on aid. I don’t see massive starvation yet [in Faryab province] but people are moving and there has been a visible increase in the numbers begging and scavenging on the roads between Mazar and Faryab Province,” he said. Klaus Haas, of German Agro-Action (GAA), agreed that recovery would take a long time, even if there were favourable conditions this year. "From what we've seen, few farmers were able to sow this autumn in the rain-fed areas. The main problem is a lack of seeds, livestock and other agricultural inputs, such as fertilisers," he said. To accelerate recovery, GAA was bringing in 350 tons of seed, sufficient for a few thousand families in rain-fed and irrigated areas. In the wake of the extensive drought, finding seeds suitable to the unforgiving Afghan climate has not been easy. "Although the variety has been successfully planted in Tajikistan, this seed has not been tried and tested in Afghanistan before. It’s a gamble, but we expect that it will adapt well to conditions here," he said. Rural families were still extremely vulnerable and, after two years of crippling drought, had virtually no reserves. Mohamed Taki, a farmer in Charkent, southern Balkh province, confirmed this when he told a UN team on Sunday that he had just sold a third of his land to settle two years of debt. WFP surveys due in mid-March should demonstrate the extent of the winter planting. Dr. Saddiqi of SCF UK in Mazar said that the snow and rain had encouraged people to take a risk and start borrowing money for seeds as they had a reasonable chance of some return this year. But he also said that "whatever harvest this year brings, it is not going to benefit the most vulnerable, in other words, the displaced and those unable to plant seeds".