Melons from remote Speenboldak in Kandahar are some of the sweetest in Afghanistan. Farmers complain they have to market the fruit clandestinely in Pakistan, which country, they say, re-exports the fruit as if it was homegrown.
Melons from remote Speenboldak in Kandahar are some of the sweetest in Afghanistan. Farmers complain they have to market the fruit clandestinely in Pakistan, which country, they say, re-exports the fruit as if it was homegrown.Haji Nazar Muhammad, a resident of Loy Kariz in Speenboldak district, says, “People understand very well that the profit of Speenboldak melons go to Pakistani traders.”
The district, which is 120 km southeast of Kandahar, has vast swathes of land under melon. For farmers, the fruit is their most important crop. They have sunk deep bore wells to pump up water for their fields. Haji Abdul Latif Noorzai, a tribal elder from Robat, in Speenboldak, says melon farming is well suited to the sparsely populated arid region.
But every year at harvest time, armed militia block the road to the Chaman checkpoint in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. The Taleban have imposed a tax on melon farmers, which works out to 10 percent of the harvest.
Farmers are forced to settle for whatever price they get, which is always less than what they spent on growing the melons, according to locals.
Tribal elder Noorzai says farmers have petitioned the provincial administration several times for markets. “We requested Kandahar Administration, but no one listens to us. When our melon crops ripen, we are forced to export them to Pakistan.”
He explains that every year “before the harvest, we share our concerns via the Chamber of Commerce with the Speenboldak district administration and Kandahar provincial administration.”
Taleban tax
Muhammad, a resident of Loy Kariz, says farmers’ woes are doubled by the high price of diesel in the district. “There are 3,000 deep wells in the district,” he explains. “People pump up water to irrigate their melon fields. But oil prices jump by up to 50 percent each year during the harvest season,” he says.
If the Afghan government does not help, the melon growers will stop producing the fruit and Speenboldak will turn into a desert again, he says.
A resident of the district’s Khugbenawai area says poor farmers cannot afford the Taleban’s tax on melons. The local spokesman for the Taleban claims no one is compelled to pay.
Life is hand-to-mouth for melon farmers. “The year melons do not sell well their efforts go in vain,” points out Haji Dadullah Noorzai, head of the district council. He says the district chief had recently met with USAID officials who have promised to find markets for Speenboldak.
