Agriculture Publications

JDA has been present in Northern Afghanistan for 15 years, with a strong specialty in high quality agricultural interventions, concentrating on the development of more resilient, sustainable, annual cropping in marginal and more commercial environments of northern Afghanistan.

Reaping frequently represents more than 30% of total wheat production costs. Previous USAID projects that have made reapers available to farmers have demonstrated cost reduction to less than 10% of total costs, which has a major impact on profitability of wheat farming.

The current problem in northern Afghanistan with "certified seed" is the farmer's lack of confidence in it. The high price of a 50 kg bag out prices many farmers. Seed companies have almost exclusively sold seed to large distribution programs and have not established farmers as clients.

The Purdue Improved Crop Storage (PICS) project aims to increase the income of farming families in northern Afghanistan through the use of plastic grain-storage bags. Our objective is also to improve food safety, retain crop's nutritional value and reduce post-harvest loss.

Weed control training is done under the project grant of RADP-N in four provinces; Baghlan, Jawzjan, Samangan, and Balkh. The goal of RADP-N training is to increase wheat productivity by 25% for 85,000 farmers.

More than 7,000 farmers have been involved in more than 34,000 trainee days over these three years(2010-2013), bringing more than 17,000 ha into improved cultivation and returning an increased 2,249,681 USD per year.