Here’s something you won’t see on the evening tv news. Soldier farmers helping rebuild the ag economy in Afghanistan. We’ve already seen this type of work being done in Iraq thanks to Paul McKellips. It looks like soldiers from several states are doing something similar to this in Afghanistan.
Despite recent progress, Afghanistan remains a poor country. Its agriculture industry, which employs 80 percent of all working Afghanis, hasn’t changed much in centuries. It is a nation that can’t feed itself without foreign aid.
To help change this, a pilot program called the Agribusiness Development Team (ADT) has been created. The effort is being led by Missouri National Guard members, many of whom are graduates of the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources.
The ADT effort is jointly coordinated by the U.S. Army, the Army National Guard, the Missouri National Guard, the University of Missouri, Lincoln University, the College of the Ozarks and the Missouri Farm Bureau. Soldiers in the field work directly with farmers while agriculture experts back in Missouri provide technical and research support.
“The Agribusiness Development Team is a novel partnership between the Missouri National Guard, retired military, farmers and universities to facilitate and educate Afghanis in the rebuilding of their agriculture economy,” said Maj. Gen. King Sidwell, adjutant general of the Missouri National Guard. “Missouri is the leader for this concept, which, if successful, will serve as a model for partnerships in other states.”
Here’s links to some more on this:
* National Guard to Help Afghan Agriculture
* Few good farmers’ heading to Afghanistan (PDF | 176 KB | See p. 8.)
* Soldiers Working with Afghan Farmers to Grow Wheat
Via the NAL Blog.