Prices of food stuff shot up with the closure of the Torkham border with Pakistan last month pushing the subject of agriculture centre stage.
Seventy percent of people are in the villages, on farms that depend on rainfall while abundant water resources remain untapped.
Abdul Qahar Sarwari, university lecturer says, “If Afghanistan was to properly use water, most agricultural land could be irrigated and the country could become self-sufficient in farm produce instead of facing shortages in even vegetables when the Torkham border closed.”
Officials in the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock say an area of 3.2 million hectares was under irrigation four decades ago, before war broke out. With irrigations systems and structures damaged by war, the land under irrigation decreased to 1.1 million hectares.
Over the last 15 years, the agriculture ministry says 2.5 million hectares have come under irrigation once again thanks to the government’s efforts.
Hasibullah Payab who is in charge of irrigation in the ministry says there are plans to expand cultivation and irrigation over an area of 60,000 hectares next to the Salma dam in Herat province; over more than 90,000 hectares next to Bakhshabad dam located in Farah province and more than 50,000 hectares in Faryab province. There are plans to build new canals for irrigation, and restore irrigated lands to levels before the start of war in the 1980s.
Drinking water is still another problem that people face in many parts of the country including in the capital Kabul where more than half the people interviewed by Killid said there was a short supply of potable water.
Officials blame overcrowding of the city with large numbers of people pouring in from areas in conflict. The city has not been able to upgrade its water supply. As a result rampant unplanned construction including of septic tanks for human waste has jeopardised the wells for drinking water.
Political analyst Asef Baktash is scathing about the government’s indifference to safeguarding Afghanistan’s water rights. “We have a government that is not like a government,” he says.
Last year, President Ashraf Ghani had described relations with Iran as contingent on water. “Base of the (bilateral) relations would be water,” he said.
