The Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) announced 94 percent self-sufficiency in wheat production. Not true, said experts and people.
Afghanistan needs 6.7 million tonnes of foodgrain annually to be able to feed its people.
Afghanistan needs 6.7 million tonnes of foodgrain annually to be able to feed its people. The country imports 3.6 million tonnes of foodgrains annually.
MAIL has claimed Afghanistan has taken a step towards self-sufficiency: production has increased to 5 million tonnes of wheat annually.
Majidullah Qarar, MAIL spokesman, said in an interview with Killid that Afghan farmers produced 6.3 million tonnes of foodgrains; the price of wheat and flour will no longer rise to meet the cost of imports. “With domestic wheat production up we need to import only 400,000 tonnes of wheat,” Qarar said.
The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries, Ministry of Commerce and Industries, agriculture experts and people have challenged the view.
Amanullah, a shopkeeper in the Baghe Qazi market in Kabul, said: “Go to all the markets of Kabul. You won’t find one bag of domestic flour. All wheat and flour are imported from Pakistan and Kazakhstan. The minister of agriculture has sat comfortably in his office; his place is warm. To show he has been active to the president (Hamid Karzai) he presented the incorrect figures to the media; to deceive the people.”
Hajji Aqa Mirza, another shopkeeper in the market who has been a flour trader for 10 years, said: “We had good domestic flour production in the past. But for years we have not seen domestic flour in the bazaar.”
He added, “We don’t grow enough to sell in the shops. What is being sold here is Kazakh wheat and flour, passed off as domestic flour. Wheat grown by Afghan farmers is for self-consumption. It is not even enough for their needs.”
Fazal Rahman, head of Food Traders’ Union, said tens of thousands of bags of flour are imported annually. A brief survey of domestic foodgrain production:
Nangarhar: opium not wheat
Wheat production in the province, which had an extensive irrigation system before the war, has again declined this year.
Sana-ul-Haq, a farmer from Shirzad district told Killid that his fields had a yield of 2,800 kgs of wheat last year while this year the yield has decreased to 1,680 kgs as a result of “natural plagues” and lack of water.
Javed who owns a shop in the Jalalabad grain market, said: “Wheat was grown abundantly at one time. Now opium and vegetables have replaced wheat.”
Hajji Tor Malang, the head of Nangarhar Industrialists Association, estimates a 60 percent decline in wheat production in the country this year. In his opinion farmers are switching to opium because of the low price of wheat.
Kunduz: wheat for own needs
The Chamber of Commerce and Industries describes the province along with Baghlan and Helmand as Afghanistan’s breadbasket. But people say farmers produce just enough for local consumption. Rahmatullah Hamnawa of Kunduz said: “Ninety five percent of people in the province can consume local flour.”
Major importer
Interviews conducted by Killid contradict MAIL’s claim of self-sufficiency. The Chamber of Commerce and Industry says Afghanistan imports nearly half of its foodgrains from its neighbours.
Khan Jan Alokozai, assistant director of the Chamber of Commerce and Industries, said”: “The figures of customs offices and our offices show that daily 10,000 tonnes of wheat are imported through different ports. The figure for annual imports is 3.6 million tonnes, which reveals that Afghanistan is not even 50 percent self-sufficient.” Afghanistan buys wheat mainly from Kazakhstan, Pakistan, and Iran. Some wheat is from Uzbekistan.
According to Alokozai, MAIL has been unable to track consumption patterns because there are no exact figures for rural and urban populations. “The figures (MAIL) are based mainly on the previous (population) estimations,” he said. “The ministry thinks that most of the population lives in rural areas and consumes local yields while this is not the case at all. Large numbers of Afghans live in the cities. In the past 80 percent of people were living in rural areas and the rest in the cities. But now 50 percent live in the cities and do not eat locally grown flour.”
MAIL asserts its figure for wheat production has been calculated with the help of the World Food Programme (WFP), which interviewed 7,000 farmers to find out the quantity of wheat produced. Satellite pictures have also been used.
Wahidullah Ghazikhail, spokesman in the Ministry of Commerce and Industries, estimates domestic production at 15 percent of foodgrains consumed in the country. “If we have been successful in meeting 94 percent of the country’s needs then we don’t need to import,” he said.
Dr Zikrullah Safi, a lecturer in the Faculty of Agriculture of Kabul University, shared the same opinion. He also wondered if MAIL was deliberately distorting figures to claim “privileges from high-ranking government authorities”.
Safi challenges the figures presented by MAIL. “If as officials say 6.3 million tonnes of wheat are produced, where is the imported flour going?”
Safi wonders how an estimated 9 million Afghans are starving when MAIL claims the country is nearly self-sufficient.
But Qarar, the MAIL spokesman, defends the figures, saying access to food is a separate issue.
