Feature: Afghan agricultural exports could soar if access to overseas markets granted

"The quality and quantity of my crops this year has been better than in the past, but unfortunately a lack of buyers here and across the borders means that some of my fruit and vegetables are left to spoil," Hajji Amanullah, a farmer from the northern Takhar province, complained.

At a stall showcasing a variety of apples and grapes at a government-sponsored three-day Agricultural Exhibition here to find new buyers and markets for his products, the farmer lamented that he had harvested more fruit but had earned less money than last year due to lack of buyers.

Afghan farmers at the agricultural fair, including women, have been displaying their products including handicrafts at more than 230 stalls to attract customers.

When asked why he has been unable to shift the requisite amount of produce to meet his quota, Amanullah explained to Xinhua that a poor communication system, pitiable connectivity between villages and cities and, above all, increasing tariffs and custom duty imposed by the Pakistani government on Afghan truckers, have negatively impacted the volume of fruit and vegetable exports to Pakistan.

"The main market for our fruits in the past was Pakistan but this year the Pakistani government has restricted measures for Afghan truckers to cross the border in the wake of brief exchanges of fire in June at Torkham, the border crossing point linking two countries," Amanullah said dejectedly.

Amanullah is just one of Afghanistan's population of 30 million people, 80 percent of whom rely on the agriculture and livestock industries to make a living.

To boost the sector in the foreign-aid dependent country, the government has, however, been encouraging Afghan and foreign companies to invest in both agricultural and livestock industries.

"The Ministry for Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock constructed new fruit plantations on 24,800 acres of land in spring and will continue to build more plantations on a further 8,000 acres of land in autumn," Afghan Minister for Agriculture Assadullah Zamir said in his opening remarks at the Agriculture Exhibition.

Along with highlighting the importance of modernizing the agriculture system in the country, officials including Zamir, also noted that the government is encouraging national and international companies to invest in the agriculture sector here, including fish farms.

War-ravaged Afghanistan, according to Lutfullah Rashid, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, has made tremendous achievements and is close to achieving self-sufficiency, saying, "the country usually needed 5.575 million tons of wheat in the past years but fortunately this year we only need to import 1.3 million tons of wheat as the rest has been produced domestically."

According to the official, Afghanistan will become self-reliant in the next couple of years in producing fruit, wheat, rice and cereals.

Rashid told Xinhua that Afghanistan had exported fruit worth 230 million U.S. dollars last year and is hopeful of earning more capital this year through such exports.

"The majority of fruit grown here becomes spoiled each year due to a lack of buyers and a lack of cold storage facilities in the country," Mohammad Nabi, another farmer, reiterated.

According to the farmers, Afghan saffron, honey, fresh and dried fruits and vegetable have customers in India, Pakistan, central Asian states, Iran and the Gulf countries, if the government is able to open up markets there.

Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani has said that the government, by managing its water resources, modernizing the agricultural practices and overcoming gender stereotypes and encouraging the participation of both men and women in the field, would enable the country to become self-reliant and see the export of agricultural products boosted significantly. Endit