Afghanistan sets to achieve self-sufficiency in agricultural products

The government of Afghanistan has planned to achieve self-sufficiency in the fields of agricultural products within the next four years, President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani said here at a conference Sunday.

"Our goal is to make Afghanistan self-sufficient in terms of agriculture in four years time," president Ghani said in his address at the fifth National Community Development Councils Consultative Conference in Arg, the country's Presidential Palace.

Outlaying his ambitious programs at the conference attended by hundreds of villagers and development workers, the president said that all water resources of the country would be utilized to irrigate more lands and increase the agricultural products in the next 10 decade of transformation period beginning from 2015.

"We aim to deliver uniform services across all the villages of Afghanistan in four years time," the president said, adding the least-developed provinces will be prioritized as part of the National Solidarity Program, a government-run project aimed at developing rural areas.

Speaking at the conference, Afghan minister for Rural Development Nasir Ahmad Durani promised to connect rural areas to cities by building roads with the objective to enable villagers to take their products to markets.

Afghanistan traditionally is an agricultural country and 80 percent of its population, according to officials, are involved in gardening and farming. Enditem