Michelle Obama and VilsackDepartment of Ag head Tom Vilsack is in Afghanistan. He held a conference call today on U.S. aid to help Afghanistan grow food such as nuts and fruits, to exported and sold locally:
For the last two days I've had the opportunity to tour the country of Afghanistan with Minister Rahimi who is the agricultural minister. As you know, in December President Obama announced a new way forward for our efforts in Afghanistan, and during the course of his of speech at West Point he mentioned not only the military commitment, but also the need for us to make a commitment to a renewed agricultural economy for Afghanistan. There's no question that agriculture is critical to the success in Afghanistan in the long haul. Eighty percent of Afghanistan's population relies on agriculture for their income and livelihood. And the USDA is working closely with USAID, the State Department and the Department of Defense in a whole government approach to working with the Afghan minister. They recently announced a new framework for agriculture in this country, and we are putting people in the field and also in the capital to work side by side with Afghans towards the goals set forth in the framework. They are interested in increasing agricultural production of basic crops as well as horticultural crops that would increase their export opportunities. They need to rebuild their natural resources as a result of devastation and deforestation over the course of the last thirty years. They are very interested in helping to build an agribusiness that will enable Afghans to process products that they are able to raise into value-added products that can then be sold to their citizens and to people throughout the world, and specifically in Central Asia. And they are engaged in an effort to try to make the Ministry of Agriculture irrigation landscapes as efficient and as effective a department as possible. So they're working through a change management effort.
The USDA is partner on all four of those goals. In the area of productivity we're working with farmers to develop new strategies. I had the opportunity to meet with grape farmers who are in the process of using new methods for producing grapes here in Afghanistan that have substantially increased their yields. We had an opportunity to visit a number of folks earlier today in Helmand province where they are working with marines and USAID and USDA officials to essentially vaccinate livestock in order to increase the productivity of livestock.
In the area of natural resources we've had a chance to visit with folks from the USDA and also state natural resource departments who are working with Afghans to plant hundreds of thousands of new trees. There is a real interest and desire to look at the possibility of nut trees. This was once the center for tremendous nut production, and they are interested in returning to those days, recognizing that there are tremendous export opportunities in that area.
We are working closely with the Afghan ministry to assist in helping produce agribusinesses. Tomorrow I'll visit a juice factory where they are taking basically second and third grade level apples and other fruits and turning them into juice. It's a remarkable new opportunity for job growth in a country that currently has, in many areas, up to forty percent unemployment. Read more or listen here.
