by LOCHRANE A. GARY

Due to security concerns all names, locations and dates have been changed to protect current and future activities in this area.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to hear. This was my fourth assignment in Afghanistan but the first time I had ever worked with a team of agricultural experts. On fifteen previous trips I had always gone alone.

After thirty-two hours of travel from Orlando to Kabul I was already exhausted. My driver, Abdul, an old friend from previous trips, picked me up at the airport and drove me to a guest house. I should have known something was amiss as he was very nervous and unusually quiet. I would be staying at a local guest house with no other Westerners so as not to draw attention to myself.

Our Chief of Party, Hameed, greeted me affectionately with the Afghan gesture of a kiss on the left cheek, then the right and again on the left. I knew Hameed from a previous assignment where he served as my interpreter. He is an older Afghan gentleman, well experienced in livestock and farming that has spent years in the United States studying American technology. He had proven to me he was capable and worthy of my trust. He offered me tea and got right to the point.

“Dr. Gary, we have a problem which I am not sure how to resolve. Our team, as you know, is made up of six agricultural experts. Someone has not followed our security protocol and the Taliban has learned our itinerary and our plans. They have issued a fatwa indicating that if any Westerners were to enter the area we planned to work in, they would be abducted and killed. Three members of our team, who arrived ahead of you have already scheduled a flight back to America. What do you want to do?”

Without hesitation I blurted out, “I don’t care if all of our team goes home. If I have to I will go to Badakhstan alone.”

As it turned out, three left and three stayed. The third member of our party, Dr. Frank, was a business development specialist who was responsible for all data collection and report writing. The three of us underestimated the hurdles we would face.

Getting there was an experience within itself. It took two days, the first by Land Cruiser and the next by camel and horseback. I was completely wiped out on arrival and we had to find a place to stay the first night. We stayed in an abandoned home on the outskirts of the village where we were told we would be safe. I slept on the floor in clothes I had worn for five days. I cannot ever remember sleeping so well.

When I was shaken awake by Hameed the next morning he had prepared tea and told me that I had missed a lot of excitement during the night. Someone had shot one of the horses in the head. Hameed had already begun an investigation and asked a member of the local shura (governing council) for machine guns for protection. He was told that we could not carry automatic weapons but was offered shotguns which he declined. We were off to a shaky start!

Background
The major purpose of our project was to demonstrate a viable alternative to poppy production. Due to ever-increasing pressure from U.S. and allied forces to eradicate poppy production in Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south, many of the poppy farmers, drug dealers and warlords have moved their operations to the northeastern portion of Badakhstan, a remote province far out of reach of the authorities. Its remote location means that the province does not attract attention. Southern-based drug lords have been relocating here in great numbers and the region is fast becoming the center of the opium industry.

Livestock production in the mountainous regions of Northern Afghanistan is a very important activity for the average Afghan rural family. It provides food both for the family as well as the potential to increase incomes for the purchase of other necessary items. Many of these tasks are carried out by the women in the family, so it is very important that we introduce to both women and men new concepts in livestock nutrition and production, forage production, and small scale, home based, milk processing.

There are two principal problems which constrain the breeds of livestock currently being produced in Afghanistan from reaching their genetic potential. These are animal health and nutrition. The correction of these two deficiencies requires a combined effort; improvement in one is somewhat dependent on an equal improvement in the other.

Afghan women are frequently the primary care takers of the livestock in the homestead, and they are almost exclusively responsible for home production of dairy products.

Program Description
Our intent is to develop and operate several small household based livestock demonstration units in remote villages, which will be used to validate the commercial potential of on-farm forage production and livestock feeding, as well as to train both men and women in the necessary aspects of livestock management and feeding. The livestock to be fed will include cattle and sheep for meat production and goats for milking. The milk produced will be incorporated into a women’s program for household milk processing.

Additionally, wool from sheep and cashmere from goats will be explored as a marketable product to increase household incomes.
Each participating farmer will contribute a male sheep, goat or beef animal to be fed in a confined feedlot enclosure. The farmer will also keep another animal of the same size and breed type at home to be housed and fed in the traditional manner. At the end of the feeding period the two animals will be weighed and measured and sold to determine which method of feeding is most profitable. There will be 1200 animals involved in the project which will be completed in late 2008.

Nomads relocating.

Typical cattle housing made of mud-brick

A Kushi family on the road in Afhanistan

Goats being used to clear mine fields

Blood sampling goats to obtain baseline data

I learned to dry manure on a wall for use as fuel to cook meals

Milk is placed into a goat hide and after 2-1/2 hours of agitation, butter is produced

Feasting on melons with local farmers during noontime break

Lessons Learned
As an American we take so much for granted. I have never lacked for food yet I work with farmers and their families who only eat one meal a day and not every day.

I have good work boots which support my ankles and protect my toes and yet I work alongside those who wear sandals or go barefoot, even in the snow.

I grew up with a mother and father who loved me and provided my every need, yet I meet scores of orphans who have never climbed onto their fathers back and played “horsey.” Their fathers have been slaughtered in the war. They may learn that their mother was raped and killed or taken away as a slave. They play with the balloons and Frisbees I give them and are so appreciative. They give big hugs and cling to my legs as I leave.

As a child I never heard of a landmine blowing up one of our cows much less one of my friends. I was taken to church and taught that “Jesus loves me” and I have found that to be true.

Despite the huge differences in our experiences, in our cultures and in whom we worship, the vast majority of Afghans whom I have met want the same things I want. We both want to be free to live in peace and harmony with our neighbor, to raise a family and to have employment which will provide our needs and a few of our wants.

Unless the Lord redirects my life, my plans are to devote my “free time” and my vacations to helping those less fortunate to improve their livelihoods by raising more productive livestock.