KABUL: Despite last year's abundant harvest, a lack of food- storage and processing facilities has created a crisis for Afghanistan's struggling farmers. With nowhere to store their harvested crops, many farmers have been forced to sell their produce at losses or, in some cases, feed the spoiling crops to animals.

The situation threatens the country's future food supplies. It has already left the country's re-emerging farming community destitute and seeking help from the government and foreign aid programmes.

About 80 per cent of Afghanistan's around 25 million people depend on agriculture for their livelihood, according to US government statistics. According to Ministry of Agriculture figures, Afghanistan has some 25,729 hectares of land under cultivation and about 70,000 hectares of land planted in trees.

Only about 12 per cent of Afghanistan's 259,935 square miles of land is arable, according to US government statistics. The current crisis was caused by the destruction of food storage facilities, greenhouses and grain silos during the years of conflict.

Only one of the nation's 10 grain silos remains operational, and the grain from this facility is used to make bread for the military and university students.

Mohammad Wahid, a farmer in the Kabul region, said he was forced to sell his onions and potatoes cheaply because he had no place to store them. Storage would have allowed him to obtain a higher price for his produce during the winter months when food supplies are low.

Instead of producing fruit and vegetables to feed his family, Wahid finds himself buying food at markets like other Kabul residents. Abdul Hakim, who owns an orchard with 300 fruit trees in a village just west of Kabul, said he is forced to sell fruit to Pakistan, which deprived Afghans of their home grown harvests.

Otherwise apples are often left to spoil because there is nowhere to store them, Hakim said, and Afghanistan now faces a fruit shortage. -Dawn/The IWPR News Service.