沙漠研究 22-1, 345 -348 (2012 )"ICAL 1 / DT X"

Journal of Arid Land Studies－Refereed Paper－

Current Situation and Issues on Agriculture of Afghanistan
Shinji Kawasaki*1), Fumio Watanabe2), Shinji Suzuki2), Ryuzo Nishimaki3) and Satoru Takahashi2)
Abstract: In Afghanistan, where 80% of the population lives in rural areas and 58% of the GDP is generated by, agriculture andrural development so that those are the most important development sector. After more than 20 years of war, agricultural production
and rural infrastructure were left with devastating damages. Agriculture production has been considered as the key sector for revivalof the economy and well being of the people in the country. But it is not enough level to achieve the food self-sufficiency and toexport of agricultural products. There are especially problems of effective use for the water resource, increase of irrigation area, andimprovement of irrigation method. Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) was formulated in May 2008 in which waspositioned as one of the important pillars for the promotion of economic development. Agricultural sector over the range havevarious problems such as restoration of infrastructure as irrigation facilities, the development of alternative crops to replace poppy
cultivation…etc. Therefore development of agricultural activities which is two thirds of the labor population is important to provide astable life with people engaged in agriculture. Under such circumstances, the objective of this study is to show a current situation ofagriculture sector and to clarify issues from the view of water on agriculture of Afghanistan.
Key Words: Afghanistan, Agriculture, Conflict, Irrigation water, Water saving irrigation

1. Introduction
Afghanistan is a landlocked country located in thecenter of Asia, forming part of South Asia, Central Asia, andGreater Middle East. It is bordered by Pakistan in thesouth and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan,
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far
northeast as shown in Figure 1 (Favre and Kamal, 2004).
In conducting agricultural activities in Afghanistan, one
needs to be fully prepared for water shortage in summer.
However, people in the country often use limited water
resources without an adequate plan even during summer whenthe temperature and the amount of solar radiation are high.
Despite this obvious problem, few studies have addressed theneed for effective irrigation planning in Afghanistan(Nishimaki and Toku, 2005).
Data shows that the agricultural output in irrigatedagriculture is twice or three times large than in rainfed one.
Furthermore, irrigation areas proved to maintain some levels of
productivity during the time of a periodic drought, while otherareas suffered from a devastating damage. As the crop
production in irrigation areas is extremely important in
Afghanistan, the introduction of an effective irrigation plan thatcan deal with water shortages in summer could result insignificantly positive outcomes.
In this study, we consider the importance of agriculture in

Afghanistan from the viewpoint of the Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) and the size of work force engaged inagriculture, thereby demonstrating that the development ofagriculture is indispensible to the future prosperity of theirrigation planning by pointing out the challenges faced by theagricultural sector in Afghanistan where agricultural industry isa high-priority in national development.

2. Overview of Agriculture in Afghanistan
2.1. Significance of agriculture
Afghanistan is a landlocked country and does not actively
engage in trading with neighboring nations.
As shown in Figure 2, the agricultural sector shares 30%of the country’s GDP in 2008, while the industry sector shares
28% and the service sector 42%. Within the industry sector,
many products come from small scale agriculture related
activities. Therefore, as much as 60% of population in thecountry is estimated to make a living from agriculture related
activities. Most of these agriculture related activities arewithin the small scale and self-sufficient production andexplain the low level of US$ 1,000 per capita nominal GDP.
Figure 3 indeed shows that some 80% of population in thework force in Afghanistan are engaged in agriculture sector.
These data clearly show that agriculture is a major industry in
Afghanistan, involving a large portion of the population. The
nation depends on the industry for its development.

* Corresponding author: fofo@gf6.so-net.ne.jp
1-1-1 Sakuragaoka Setagaya-ku Tokyo, Tokyo University of Agriculture, Japan1) Graduate School of Agriculture,. Tokyo University of Agriculture, Japan
2) Faculty of regional Environment Science. Tokyo University of Agriculture, Japan

3) Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Japan

Fig. 4. Monthly precipitation amount and average air temperature
in Kunduz, north Afghanistan.

Fig. 1. General map of Afghanistan.

Fig. 2. GDP proportion of major sector of Afghanistan in 2008
(IRACSO, 2010).

Fig. 3. The work force proportion of major sector of Afghanistan in2008 (IRACSO, 2010).

2.2. Climate of Afghanistan
Afghanistan occupies the northeastern area of the Plateauof Iran. The Hindu Kush Mountains stretching from Pakistan
and their offsets shape a plateau in the center of the country.
Because of these geographical characteristics, much rainfall
turn to snow which remain in high mountains, then flow intorivers in early spring as the temperature rises. Agriculture in
Afghanistan has the form of a typical oasis agriculture seen inCentral Asia drawing water from rivers.
Figure 4 shows that the changes of monthly precipitation
amount and average air temperature in Kunduz, a major

Fig. 5. Typical cropping pattern and irrigation period for major
crops in north Afghanistan.

agricultural region with the altitude of 400-2000 meters andwith typical meteorological characteristics of Afghanistan.
The rainfall begins in October, reaches its peak in March andends in May. It hardly rains during the periods from June toOctober, especially in summer when the temperature is high.
As a result, the problem of water shortages frequently occurs in
the latter part of the planting period between April and October,causing major difficulties in crop cultivation.
2.3. Characteristics of the planting schedule
We examined the planting schedule in such a harshmeteorological condition of Afghanistan. Figure 5 shows theplanting schedule in Kunduz, a representative region of thenortheast breadbasket area (JICA, 2010). The planting period
for crops, except the winter wheat, is between March andOctober.
According to typical cropping pattern and irrigation period
for major crops in Figure 5, irrigation is required from April
to September. However, the level of groundwater drops
rapidly from August to September due to irrigation for crops.
When it is difficult to pump up water, water shortages occurFig. 6. Typical irrigation facilities in Afghanistan.
A: intake gate in river,
B: earth canals,
C: shallow well,
D: irrigation pond

Fig. 8. Comparisons of wheat yield with irrigated and rainfed
agriculture.

Fig. 9. Relationship between rainfall amount and the size of irrigatedand rainfed areas for wheat cultivation.

Fig. 7. Irrigation area and rainfed area in Barmiyan Province.

and greatly affect yields of crops.
As for water sources during the planting period, the water
melted from snow flows into rivers and provide water sources
during the first half of the period from March to early June.
For the latter part from June to October, irrigation water ispumped out from the groundwater. Summer is the mostchallenging season for planting and harvesting as rainfall
cannot be expected and the level of groundwater drops(FAO/WFP, 1999). Four photos in Figure 6 show typicalirrigation system in Afghanistan. It is clear that irrigation
facilities such as intake gates, earth canals and pond should beimproved in increasing the efficient use of irrigation water.
2.4. Comparison of agricultural productivity between
rainfed and irrigated agriculture
Figure 7 shows two landscapes which are irrigated andrainfed agriculture area in Barmiyan province. This irrigatedarea is like green but rainfed area gray.
As shown in Figure 8, the yields of wheat, a major grain in

Afghanistan, are twice or three times larger in irrigation
agriculture areas than rainfed, one while the size of the former
is only twice larger than the latter. So that irrigatedagriculture has contributed greatly to food security in
Afghanistan
Furthermore, the irrigation areas have proven to be able tomore or less withstand against famines. The year 2000, 2001,
2004 and 2008 are known for seriously low yields. While
farmers in rainfed areas suffered from a devastating blow totheir yields in these years except the year 2004, those inirrigation areas were able to maintain some levels of yields inall of these years.
Figure 9 shows the relationship between rainfall amountand the size of irrigated areas and rainfed areas (no data exists
prior to the year 2002). According to this data, the area undercultivation becomes smaller in the years when precipitation
amount is a little.
All these data indicate that the agricultural production in
irrigated areas is important to raising the agricultural outputs inAfghanistan. The data also suggest that the improvement in
the usage of water resources in irrigation areas constitutes a key
to the development of the agricultural sector, considering thelimited availability of water resources in this country.

3. Key Challenges
The arable and permanent cropland area in Afghanistan is
8.5 million hectors, in which the areas with irrigation facilities
are about one million hectors (CSO, 2010). However, due toprolonged conflicts and unstable snowfalls, only one million
hectors of a land in the irrigated areas were farmed in 2003.
Such a reduction of actual irrigated areas affects crop yields
and prevents a stable growth of the agricultural industry.
For this reason, a major challenge is to rebuild irrigation
areas which are the main crop-growing lands in Afghanistan.
In order to meet this challenge, two measures are considered.
First, efforts should be made to repair or construct andeffectively manage irrigation facilities. Second, a water-saving method that stresses the efficient use of water shouldbe improved.
For the first measure, considering the present degradationof water intake and supply facilities, it is important to, inaddition to repairing irrigation facilities, develop new water
sources, improve the transportation efficiency and strengthen
the capabilities of irrigation organizations. Although such
efforts at the field levels continue, the improvements in theseareas at the macro-level have been difficult because ofbudgetary and other constraints.
Meanwhile, the second measure appears to hold promise.
It seems that irrigation techniques existed before inAfghanistan. However, the long years of conflicts and otherfactors resulted in watering use practices without anappropriate irrigation plan. The assessment of necessary
irrigation amounts according to crop types and regions and thecreation of a simple irrigation plan that controls the levels ofwater consumption per unit can lead to the establishment ofirrigation systems that can be managed by farmers. Therefore,
this study focuses on the latter of the two measures.

4. Conclusion
Agriculture is the main source of livelihood andsubsistence for 80 percent of the population that lives in rural
areas, and a crucial sector for national food security andeconomic growth. However, agriculture in Afghanistan faces
a problem of water shortages during the latter half (summer) ofplanting period. The issue is the wastage of water due to theaging of irrigation facilities and unorganized irrigation
practices. Therefore, the efficient use of limited water
resources is an issue of paramount importance. The researchin this area is urgently needed. In particular, the design of anirrigation plan that improves irrigation efficiency is importantas such a plan can lead to the immediate improvement of
production efficiency and yields by making it accessible tofarmers. In addition, agriculture in the irrigation areas with aneffective irrigation plan can produce high amounts of yields
and reasonable levels of yields even during famines.
Therefore, the diffusion of such a plan could make a great
contribution to the development of agriculture industries in
Afghanistan. It should be noted that one needs sufficientamounts of meteorological data in order to conceptualize aneffective irrigation plan; however, this has been difficult due tothe prolonged conflicts. Therefore, it is necessary to researchtechnological development of a simple effective irrigation
method immediately to address the needs in Afghanistan.
Acknowledgement
The authors are grateful to the Ministry of Agriculture
Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) Afghanistan, Japan
International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Japan
Association for International Collaboration of Agriculture
Forestry (JICA-NARP Project).

References
Central Statics Organization (CSO) (2010): Afghanistan
Agriculture, Statistical Yearbook - 2009-10, 111-130.
Favre Kamal (2004): Watershed Atlas of Afghanistan, Ministryof Irrigation, Afghanistan.
FAO/WFP (1999): Crop and food supply assessment missionof Afghanistan, Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation andLivestock (MAIL), Afghanistan.
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Center Statistics Organization(IRACSO) (2010): Afghanistan Statistical Yearbook(2008-2009). 29: 135-165, 231-244.
JICA (2010): Study on current basic situation and informationcollection of agriculture in northern and northeastern areasof Afghanistan.
Nishimaki R., Toku H. (2005): Report of the study of urgent
rehabilitation support program of agriculture in Kandahar,
Afghanistan, Journal of Arid Land Studies, 15(2):109-114.
(in Japanese)