KHYBER: Leaving the scary memories of decade-long displacement and frightening period of militancy, farmers in Bara have achieved a milestone by exporting a variety of locally grown vegetables.

Farmers in Akkakhel area of Bara and officials of agriculture department told Dawn that after a successful experience of exporting bitter gourd (Karela) to some gulf countries last year on a limited scale, they were able to export thousands of kilograms of peas to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates during the current year.

Farmers said that peas grown in Bara and Sheikhan farmlands were considered to be soft and sweet in nature and were always popular in local markets prior to the start of militancy in 2005.

“This particular variety was reintroduced in Akkakhel area and distributed among local farmers after undergoing some necessary research process in Tarnab Farm agriculture institute following a majority of the internally displaced families were rehabilitated in their respective regions since 2015,” officials told Dawn.

Officials say agriculture dept provides training and assistance to growers

Sharafat Khan Afridi, an official of agriculture department in Bara, said that local farmers were linked to vegetable exporters based in Peshawar who were invited to Bara where they were shown the freshly harvested pea crop while Food and Agriculture Organisation provided farmers with international standard packing material to add further value to the ‘indigenous product’.

He said that his department also provided every possible technical assistance to farmers apart from imparting them capacity building training to enable them to stand on their own feet and recover from the agonising impacts of the period of militancy and displacement.

Mr Afridi said that in order to overcome any technical issue or to tackle any pest attack or treating different crop diseases, his department had linked all Bara farmers through different WhatsApp groups to keep in touch with them for any urgent assistance.

Fazal Amin, an Akkakhel farmer, who was the first to cultivate the renewed variety of peas on his farms after he was provided with free seeds as test farming, said that the experience was a huge success as the number of farmers, who cultivated the same variety on their fields, swelled to more than 50.

He said that after getting a ‘bumper’ harvest from his initial pea cultivation, he started selling the seeds to other farmers, who also showed interest in its cultivation due to its better quality and rising demand in the local market.

“We used to get a profit of Rs6 to 7 laaks from our harvest in the first two years from local market but now the profit has increased almost three times with the export of peas from our farms,” a joyful Fazal Amin explained.

Amin Gul, another farmer from Akkakhel, said that farmers in Bara were hardworking and wanted to bring innovation in their farming techniques which was duly provided to them by agriculture department.

He said that agriculture department was holding regular sessions for their capacity building alongside providing them with technical assistance to get maximum financial benefits from growing different vegetables.

Sharafat Khan Afridi said that they also wanted to introduce those crops and seeds, which were climate change resilient and could bear the climatic hardships to save local farmers from climate related losses.

He said that agriculture department was also working on more types of vegetables to be grown in Bara and enable farmers to not only provide those vegetables to local markets but to also improve their quality for export.

Published in Dawn, March 5th, 2025