In part 1 of this series, I described the extremely desirable and/or risk-reducing incentives that make Afghanistan's opium production persistent. Changing opium production requires a different landscape of economic incentives and disincentives, which is what Afghanistan's agricultural aid programs aim to provide on many levels.
Chief among the disincentives include poppy eradication and other law enforcement measures; these have had little or no negative effect on poppy production. (See last week's video entry.) Creating alternative economies have also had limited success in a region where poverty is rampant and GDP per capita is USD 800 per year. Each of the efforts listed below have significant merit and represent hours of strategic thinking. In the long-term, they may well meet with the success of a more varied, self-sustaining agricultural base. At the same time, each one is suffering from short to medium term problems–for reasons also discussed below.
Resurrecting a varied agriculture from the ground on up
Large infrastructure projects:
This has included the re-vamping of irrigation systems, which allows farmers to plant more water-reliant crops with greater success; road construction, which allows for farm-to-market distribution; and land terracing, reforestation, and re-building exhausted crop soil. However, many of these very necessary forms of agricultural infrastructure also facilitate poppy growth and most of all, distribution. For example, Vadim over at neweurasia.net wrote extensively upon a new bridge over the Panj river that will unite Tajikistan and Afghanistan–and may be used for increased drug traffic. From the comments on this article, it seems that fear is just, and creates burdens as well as opportunities for Afghanistan's neighbors. In the end, these projects are value-neutral in changing the conditions for opium cultivation. Non-opium agriculture and commerce will not survive without them, but they also facilitate the growth and transport of opium as well.
Crop specific infrastructure:
Another approach has been facilitates the quality and marketability of specific non-opium crops. Once roads are built that trucks can traverse without jouncing produce around and smashing it flat, the need for other kinds of distribution and middle-man infrastructure show up. These include cold storage and warehousing for produce, so that it can be packed appropriately. According to one report, even a lack of crates can stop produce production: failing to harvest fruit, or packing it so poorly that it is too damaged to use, much less sell, after shipping. Other provided technology/appliances include generators, raisin dryers, and veterinary clinics and services.
The report I read on apple distribution was meticulously written and comprehensive, and therefore I want to use it as a best example. A portion of the report discussed packing materials, including boxes and inserts to pack apples appropriately. It is true that paying for boxes would cut down on crops left unpacked and damage control. From what I have been reading lately, most enterprising Afghanistani businessmen are perfectly capable of maintaining a standard (sometimes at the top of their lungs, of course, just like anywhere). But this also assumes a ready distribution of these boxes in perpetuity, in order to change the agricultural habits of centuries.
Therefore, one has to have a box factory: one has to have a source of pulp and cardboard; and the inserts, which in the U.S. are made often of foam or plastic, remain an imported good. As long as packing materials are imports, they are either too dear or the output of a program, which will have limited and temporary distribution. So let's put it like this: just as every cold storage facility needs a generator, every agricultural region needs a package-maker/distributor. And most of all, it needs to be part of the innate calculus for costing in farm sales, which takes public relations and education. This particular report, crafted so carefully, written to initiate, justify, and prompt this active aid, are less useful to Afghanistan's farmers and consumers than they are to grant-makers or foreign spectator-scholars like me, who has a life habit and expectation of buying well-packed produce. I am convinced this project is worthy: but then I am not the owner of an orchard in Afghanistan.
Alternate crops:
By far, the effort to bring different crops to Afghanistan is the one that will continue to suffer the most initial failure. The reason for this failure is that nothing is going to fetch the price that opium does, and we should expect this effort to meet both initial interest and ultimate resistance. It's the educative aspect of this that will bear fruit in the long run: it gives these farmers something to think about: a choice when the incentive landscape changes.
It's so interesting to me, though, that many of the ideas for crop substitution seems to hinge upon a flower-to-flower substitution: Afghanistan's floral fantasy. First, sunflowers were suggested, for seed and oil; then crocus plants, for saffron, which would at least be an expensive, cash-commodity crop. Even noted Afghanistan scholar Barnett Rubin seemed to be seduced by the flower aspect: he wrote one paper on the possibilities of perfume production. This floral substitution project idea also adds a nice value-added component: manufacture of essences.
The perfume project actually came into being, and has met significant institutional and infrastructure barriers: see this 6-page report at Aga Khan Foundation site.
Nevertheless, the consistent floral topnote here suggest to me a brainstorm on the part of outsiders rather than an effort that initiates out of a popular need in Afghanistan. And all of these are good ideas, but one runs into the same problem as with packing materials: as long as these ideas are imports, they will not capture the popular imagination. It requires time, repetition, and a kind of suggestiveness to turn an idea into part of an innate set of choices.
The second effort has been to introduce better seed varieties of traditional crops: for example, drought-resistant wheat seed. This will probably work in the long run with greater success than say, crocus: but not when the seed is dropped at the front door along with a threat to use it instead of poppy seed for this year's crop.
Aspirational projects:
On a more aspirational level, USAID-backed Chemonics inaugurated an agricultural fair where laser technology for land terracing was modelled. The fair brought together numbers of farmers as well as some agribusiness leaders. For instance, Dole is opening an 83-acre experimental farm. The highlight of the fair, according to the press release, was the announcement of scholarships for students of agriculture.
Efforts like agricultural fairs are opportunities for more than the show-off of laser technology. They have the quality of relief, as they also incorporate ideas of community and celebration, spectacle and progress. Items like experimental farms bring hope for a future sustainable agriculture. They bring technology transfer, as Dole will look at appropriate seed types and cultivation methods, and work with actual Afghan soil. But focusing upon these efforts in their publicity gives a somewhat skewed picture of the kind of aid that Chemonics delivers (sometimes at loss to life) in Afghanistan on a more daily basis.
While each of these projects is very important to Afghanistan's overall health, it appears to many observers that projects are un-coordinated with each other and have patchwork type of development. It's not hard to see why: to bring up produce production, you need cardboard; to initiate better market distribution, you have to facilitate it for every crop, desirable and undesirable; and to re-terrace land, you have to explain lasers to people who currently have few elementary schools.
In essence, every project in Afghanistan right now is aspirational: they are based on hope and its counterpart, despair: despair on the ground, and despair of making a positive difference in opium eradication. As much as we need to tweak our delivery of these alternatives, we need to hold on tight to the ideas from which these alternatives spring. The patchwork problem is mosty a funding problem: not enough money to tie together the efforts already being made.
Further reading: So much that you could write several texts, so this is selected:
US Department of State Country Background Notes-Afghanistan–updated May 2007
Numbers: USAID Afghanistan budget page, updated June 2, 2007. USAID is the top reconstruction contributor in Afghanistan
ReliefWeb: Who's Working in Afghanistan
When Afghanistan's reconstruction was left out of US budget– BBC, 2003 – which, though rectified, is an indicator in itself
Photos: BBC; Linvilla.com; Magnar Aspaker; Pure-Incense.com; FAO
