AFGHANISTAN: Drought-stricken farmers appeal for urgent assistance

MAIMANA, 30 October 2006 (IRIN) - Farmers in the northwestern Afghan province of Faryab say they are desperate for help to survive the winter after the devastating drought that destroyed this year’s crops.

Their calls come after last week’s appeal to donors from the government and from the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) to provide urgent help for those in need.

For now, the lost harvest is forcing farmers like Ali Mohammad, 45, from Pashtoon Kot district, to sell their emaciated animals in an effort to feed their families after crops failed two months ago.

“I only got 70 kg from my wheat yield this year [compared to] nearly 900 kg in a good year. So in one month we will be starving and winter is getting closer,” Mohammad said, as he jostled with dozens of other farmers trying to sell their livestock at the provincial capital’s market.

As a result of the drought, there has been a 55 percent loss in rain-fed wheat in provinces in the north and northeast compared with 2005, according to Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock in Kabul.

Production of wheat, which is a third rain-fed and accounts for 80 percent of all cereal output, is expected to fail sharply. Official estimates put total output in 2005 at 3.7 million mt, down 13 percent on 2005, while total cereals production is expected at 4.8 million mt compared to domestic demand of around 6 million mt.
Faryab province, home to 1 million people, has been hit particularly hard by the drought as almost 90 percent of agricultural land is watered by rain, leaving an estimated 180,000 farmers without water.

“Farmers have lost over 80 percent of their rain-fed wheat crops due to very low precipitation this year,” said Assadullah Bahar, head of the provincial agriculture and livestock department of Faryab in Maimana city.

Over the past 12 months, water in shallow wells and traditional reservoirs - usually used for drinking water and for livestock - have all but dried up in many parts of the province.

“Nearly 40 percent of all domestic animals in the province have been sold and people continue to transport their cattle, including oxen and sheep, to the neighboring provinces of Jawzjan and Mazar-e Sharif for sale,” Bahar maintained.

Bahar also highlighted concern that impoverished farmers may be tempted to turn to other ways of making a living unless help is at hand.

“Farmers are in very desperate conditions and need urgent assistance, otherwise it’s feared that many of them will resort to illicit poppy cultivation and also we will definitely see major population displacement,” he said.

Last week, the government and UNAMA appealed for some US $43 million to cope with the urgent needs of 1.9 million drought-stricken people and around 20,000 families who have been displaced by the recent conflict in southern Afghanistan.

“This request is extremely time sensitive and I would like to appeal to all the donors to respond quickly and generously,” said Ameerah Haq, deputy of the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General to Afghanistan.

With more than half the country’s 30 million inhabitants living below the poverty line an estimated 6.5 million people are already seasonally or chronically food insecure, officials say.

The Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD), along with the World Food Programme (WFP), have been working to assist the most needy.

“We have earlier launched around 90 food-for-work projects in 21 provinces and will provide some 20,000 mt of mixed food items to drought-stricken people,” Abudrahim Zarin, an MRRS spokesman, told IRIN.

But many farmers in Faryab contacted by IRIN complained that they had not received any assistance yet and said they would be forced to resort to opium cultivation to feed their families.

“There is no assistance from any side and the only remaining way for us to feed our families is to cultivate poppy because it can grow on little water and could give us several times better profit than wheat,” said 35-year-old Azizullah, a farmer in the Gurziwan district of Faryab who was also selling his last remaining cattle in Maimana City.

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