National Guard units from agricultural states are sending in small teams of specialists to help Afghan farmers improve the way they cultivate crops.
“We have isolated the challenge and attacked it with human resources,” said Col. Martin Leppert, special assistant to the director of the Army National Guard for agri-business development teams.
Afghanistan’s rural population is about 80 percent farmers, yet “their needs are not being met the same as in urban areas,” he said at the Association of the U.S. Army conference.
Guard members with agriculture and civil engineering degrees, or with practical skills such as welding and animal husbandry are setting up demonstration farms, and helping Afghans go from subsistence farming to where they can earn extra money for their crops.
It’s all about providing jobs to 18- to 45-year-old men, Leppert said. “Those are the guys who could go either way. They could be our friend. They could be our foe.”
The teams are avoiding provinces where they would compete head to head with farmers who are growing illegal crops such as poppies. “We’re interested in getting after the fence-sitting farmers. It’s those guys we want to influence,” Leppert said.
Grapes, corn and wheat could actually earn farmers more than poppies or marijuana if better methods were applied. They can lose up to 50 percent of their grape crop because of rot and mold. Properly terracing and irrigating fields can reduce that, he said.
Guard personnel with marketing backgrounds are advising farmers how to sell their crops. Engineers are helping build irrigation systems where water is scarce, and providing renewable energy in the form of wind turbines for slaughterhouses and water pumping stations.
“Those hometown young men and women have skills that they use daily and they can bring them to bear in the fight in Afghanistan,” Leppert said.
The ultimate goal is to hand off the program to interagency partners. The U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department are helping with the long-term strategic goals. Department of Agriculture specialists are now training with units before deployment so there can be a more “cohesive” team when the military and civilian partners arrive in country.