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Afghanistan

Helpdesk Report: K4D - Agriculture in Afghanistan – economic sustainability and subsector viability

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Laura Bolton
Institute of Development Studies
10 May 2019

1. Summary

The majority of the Afghanistan population live in rural areas where agriculture is critical for livelihoods. Harnessing the potential of agriculture is important for improving labour productivity, the lives of women, and food security. The high youth population is contributing to unemployment and underemployment. Market participation is currently limited and unpaid family members constitute a large number of the workforce.

A 2014 World Bank Afghanistan Review recommends focusing on three agricultural sub-sectors in terms of economic viability: irrigated wheat, horticulture (including fruit, nuts and vegetables), and livestock (including production or milk, eggs and poultry meat). These recommendations are based on their suitability for small intensively irrigated and peri-urban areas. However, recent research highlights difficulties with irrigation for crop agriculture and price stagnation for fruits and nuts. The high potential of horticulture and livestock which is suggested in the literature is not possible to back up with data. Data collection is difficult for a number of reasons including the seasonal and informal nature of jobs in the sector.
Key findings include:

  • Realisation of the potentials in particular sub-sectors requires an enabling business environment. The World Bank Afghanistan Horticulture and Livestock Productivity Project has improved systems and provides investment support. Horticultural extension has created 10,000 full-time jobs (60 per cent are long-term).

  • The effects of currency depreciation on competitiveness of exports is noted in an International Labor Organization Study (ILO). The ILO assess the income per unit of land and number of people employed for a number of different crops in 2015. The most profitable per land unit are grapes and tomatoes. Wheat is the least profitable per land unit but employs the highest number of the population.

  • To link farmers to markets investment in connectivity and infrastructure is needed. Agribusiness potential will also be improved with capacity development of knowledge of trading and marketing practices.

  • Community-based enterprises and integrated value chains have been successful in creating jobs in World Bank projects. A case study of employment in the fruit processing sector is included in section 4 of this report.

Section 5 outlines recommendations for agriculture in Afghanistan from a Secure Livelihoods Consortium working paper. The need to recognise commodity markets as complex systems comes through as a strong message.

A rapid search was carried out to identify information on other conflict-affected states with regards to key sub-sectors and agri-business success. Section 6 includes findings from Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Myanmar, and Somalia. Section 7 reports an overview of leading sub-sectors in different conflict-affected states according to Export.gov, a market research site from the United States.