BRAC Afghanistan Agriculture & Livestock Programme

Afghanistan has only 12% arable land and the country's economy depends on agriculture and livestock so the rural peoples entirely depend on seeds, fertilizer, storage facility and marketing channels. After realized, BRAC Afghanistan commenced its Agriculture and Livestock Development Programme in the year 2003. The programme aims to improve the livelihoods and nutritional status for small and marginal farm household through technology transfer which has given high priority for poverty alleviation, generating income and employment opportunity creation. Activities involved in agriculture programme are wheat seed and fertilizer distribution, vegetables seed and agriculture tools, silo distribution to farmers, integrated pest management, hybrid maize cultivation and small scale kitchen gardening in the homesteads.

BRAC Afghanistan has established 2 horticulture nurseries in Balkh and Nahri Shahi districts of Balkh Province and produced a total number of 3.5 million different variety fruit and timber seedlings. The poultry & livestock programme involved in layer and broiler rearing, sheep & goat rearing, cow rearing, deworming, fattening and mass vaccination and deworming programme. Artificial insemination is operating in an small scale in few provinces of Afghanistan; through AI activities i) improvements of local breed for more milk and meat production ii) having a healthy and quality calf and iii) controling of zonotic diseases are expected.

Till present, the program is being supported by different donor agencies notably MISFA, Oxfam, UNWFP and UNFAO. Both programs are expanded in 48 districts and 12 Provinces throughout Afghanistan .

Agriculture Programme

Wheat Demonstration:
Wheat cultivation in Afghanistan is main cereal crop. Most of farmers are cultivating traditionally. That's why BRAC Afghanistan has planned training on wheat cultivation that related to high yielding variety so that farmers could get more production.BRAC Afghanistan has provided training to the farmers.Training included pest management, high yielding variety, disease control etc.

Maize Cultivation
Immediate goal of maize cultivation is to help farmers produce enough food to cover the country's basic need and for the national agricultural system as well as effort to provide alternative livelihoods mostly for the farmers currently engaged in poppy farming. Recent report from UN state that Afghanistan is the one largest poppy producer and it is increasing day by day. Reason is that farmers are getting 10-15 times more secure cash benefit than any others crops. BRAC Afghanistan has designed to address alternative livelihood of poppy cultivation by providing technical training with high quality seeds and adequate fertilizer. During programme implementation, local farmers have reacted positively to the new technology and “are pleased to have access new varieties with better yields and other advantages, compared to their old variety”. Farmers using new technology have reported yields of up to two to three times higher than their neighbors. We hope that result of this reporting period will influence mass population in this way that such type of crop cultivation will recover food insecurity from the country and at the same time beneficiaries would receive as an alternative livelihood of poppy cultivation.

Kitchen gardening
Kitchen gardening is a simple and effective way to immediately benefit the vulnerable poor, including returnees. The promotion of kitchen gardening supports provides income, improves food security and promotes a balance diet and increased nutrition of targeted beneficiaries, particularly women and children. To enhance kitchen gardening in homestead level BRAC Afghanistan has trained 200 poor women in different provinces. Okra, Onion, Eggplant, Pepper seeds have been distributed for spring season. The kitchen gardening activities provided women with basic nutritional information as well as training in growing a variety of vegetables for consumption and sale.

Horticulture Nursery
Afghanistan had lot of horticulture product from which 60 products was exporting. But due internal confliction as well as four years of drought has destroyed entire orchards and irrigation systems. In order to increase horticulture practices in Afghanistan, BRAC has trained 50 beneficiaries and at the same time Seed- 240 Kg Fertilizer-574 kg has been provided that included three districts (Mozburabad, Surkhod and Beshood) in Nangarhar province and two districts (Mohammad Roqi and Kohgistan-2) in Kapisa province.

Training in Agriculture & Livestock Development Credit Support Programme (ALDCSP)
BRAC Afghanistan is giving loan to farmers to have an access to use this money for agriculture. In addition wit credit support, BRAC Afghanistan has organized training on vegetable cultivation, cereal crop cultivation and orchard gardening to develop the technical knowledge of farmers. Duration of training on vegetable cultivation, cereal crop and orchard gardening was 3 day and for 21 days for extension worker.

BRAC Poultry and Livestock Programme

Livestock Clinic
In order to treatment facility of livestock animal and compliment of para-veterinary, BRAC has established four livestock clinics, which are: two in Parwan (Jabul Siraj and Bagram district), one in Nangarhar (Shukrod district) and Balkh (Balkh District). Due to unavailable of livestock animal BRAC Afghanistan has closed Bagram livestock clinic. Each clinic has one Doctor of Veterinary Medicine with one para-veterinarian. BRAC livestock clinics are now serving treatment facility of household animal as well as cluster wise vaccination program through mobile clinics in order to reduce mortality of livestock with the help of the DVM and para-veterinarian. They also visit the beneficiaries' households. In an addition BRAC has assisted two government livestock clinics after receiving request letter from the General Director of the Department of Veterinary. BRAC has supplied some selective Medicines and Equipment to the Government Livestock Clinics of Kapisa (Central and Kohistaan-2).

Broiler Farming
BRAC Afghanistan is implementing broiler rearing through poor women in order to income generation by themselves. Poultry production in Afghanistan is based on domestic chicks. Extensive surveys by the FAO program for Afghanistan have shown that poultry production is an important activity for poor and landless villagers. In many cases poultry is the only asset that directly owned by village women. Although contribution of rural poultry production to Afghanistan is significant and contributes more than 98% of poultry products in the country, the indigenous breeds normally have very low production potentials.BRAC Afghanistan has trained women on broiler rearing in Kabul and Parwan provinces with aims to produce broiler. BRAC has carried out training on different aspect of broiler rearing like advantages of rearing high quality variety of day-old-chicks, rearing house and management, letter use, brooding, feeding, disease prevention and vaccination. After receiving the three days training, the women have been implementing broiler chicken rearing activities for table consumption as well as for selling. Each of the trained women has been provided 100 no's day-old-chicks and necessary feed, feeder and drinker as well as medicine and vaccination facility. Although it was not available in Afghanistan but BRAC arranged to buy these inputs from Pakistan . It was not possible to rear in the winter season (December-march) because day-old-chicks are unlikely to survive in the extreme cold weather. During program implementation it has observed that if adequate facility like availability of day old chicks, feed, feeder, drinker, it will be helpful for sustaining the broiler rearing farm in the rural area.

Layer Rearing
Layer rearing is one of most important activities as an income generating activities in Afghanistan , which could provide a major source of protein to children and families, and women are primary managers of poultry production. Due to unavailable of high yielding poultry bird, balance food in rural area most of the Afghan farmers are producing in traditional system in which mortality was counted more than 50%. They have no proper knowledge and efficiency to rear layer rearing. But there are potentialities to develop poultry would give a substantial source of supplementary food for the nation and lucrative subsidiary occupation to large section of the people, particularly women. With aims to income generating activities through layer rearing, BRAC Afghanistan has provided technical and financial assistance to poor women. The beneficiaries has been selected by their self interested to do layer programme, and those who have limited land for chicks layering has been given preference.

Layer Rearing helps Rais Gul family

Rais Gul is living village of Bagh-e-rais district under Kabul province. Her husband name Mir Ahmed. She has no any education. Her husband is working as a mobile vegetable seller. They don't have any agricultural land. Only her husband was the main income source through vegetable selling. They have three daughters and two sons. One son and two daughters are going to school. So, it was difficult for them to minimize nutritional requirement of their family member as well as expenditure. They don't know layer rearing would be another source of income that could helps their family. One day BRAC PO (Poultry PO) went to Rais Gul's house and discussed about layer rearing program. She became more interested to select herself in this program. After that she participated 3 day training course on layer rearing so that she could able to know the management, disease control, feeding system and vaccination of layer rearing. After completion of training, BRAC had provided 20 two month old layer birds with balance feed, feeder and drinker 20. PO (Poultry) and sometime DVM visits her house and time to time has given suggestion as required. They had given suggestion for treatment, vaccination, feeding to keep the house clean for layer bird. This suggestion and vaccination was helped to save all of bird. Now Rais Gul knows layer rearing technique properly. After 3.5 month she got eggs production. She had 18 layer birds out 20 birds and everyday she was getting 10-13 eggs. She thought that if she buys more bird, she could get more egg that will help her family expenditure. After that she also purchased some layer bird from existing eggs production. Now Rais Gul are rearing 30 layer bird from which she is getting 22-24 egg per day. Some times these eggs are using for household consumption, sometime she is selling egg to the market. She is motivated to rear layer bird in medium level. Rais Gul says, “Layer rearing has opened her eyes to earn money and help her family. She also believes that women could contribute for their family through layer rearing.

Artificial Insemination (A.I):
Milk production of local cow is 2-3 liter in Afghanistan , which can increase through development of local breed through artificial insemination. Livestock development program has organized artificial insemination training to develop Para profession in artificial insemination sector. Total of 10 participants from five different provinces participated for A.I. training.

BRAC Afghanistan Agriculture & Livestock Programme At a glance (as of December, 2009)