ICARDA Annual Report 2001

Future Harvest Consortium to Rebuild Agriculture in Afghanistan

In October 2001, ICARDA proposed an initiative at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the CGIAR to help Afghanistan, particularly to meet the need for emergency seed supplies and to rehabilitate the local crop variety development and testing system and the seed supply sector. Following discussions with USAID, ICARDA received a US$2.5 million grant from the Office for Foreign Disaster Assistance to implement a project. The objectives are to:

Multiply and deliver quality seed of adapted varieties through effective delivery systems to reach affected farmers in time, and to build, with Afghan partners, an effective regulatory system that enforces standards and promotes the use of high quality seed and varieties. Establish a framework and strategy for CGIAR technical assistance, in cooperation with partners, for the development of seed systems and sustainable agricultural production systems in Afghanistan.

A key challenge in rebuilding Afghanistan’s agriculture is to restore the health of crop-lands and rangelands. Livestock are an integral component of the farming systems, but rangelands are severely degraded and exposed to desertification.

A meeting of stakeholders is planned for January 2002 in Tashkent. The meeting, supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and organized by ICARDA’s Regional Office for Central Asia and the Caucasus, is expected to bring together representatives from 10 of the 16 Future Harvest Centers of the CGIAR, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, United States institutions, various international agencies, and donors including the Department for International Development (DFID), U.K.; the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada; USAID, and others.