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Afghanistan
Afghanistan expects biggest wheat harvest in 32 years
2009-06-03
Afghanistan is projected this year to collect its biggest wheat harvest in 32 years, taking the impoverished country to near self-sufficiency in the staple crop, the agriculture minister said Tuesday.
Think how much better they could be doing if they weren't spending so much effort growing poppies ...
The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) expects a bumper harvest that is 63 percent higher than that of last year, mainly because of good rains, griculture Minister Asif Rahimi told reporters. Other factors were a 20 percent increase in farmland devoted to wheat -- a result of last year's high prices for the crop -- and the provision to farmers of seeds and fertilisers, he said.

"The wheat harvest this year will be record high for the past 32 years if the projection proves to be accurate," Rahimi said. This yield would mean Afghanistan would have to buy in only 200,000 metric tonnes of wheat compared to 2.1 million tonnes last year, he said. And it would make Afghanistan only 10 percent short of self sufficiency in wheat for the year, the minister said.

FAO representative Tekeste Tekie told the press conference that Afghanistan needed six million metric tonnes of wheat every year. The population is estimated at 26-30 million although there has never been a census.

Tekie said his agency's studies showed production this year would reach 6.3 million metric tonnes. However, "there may be 15 percent losses in harvesting and in storing", he said. "If we reduce our harvest losses on the field and in the storing... there will be no shortage or the shortage will be very minimal," he said.
Posted by:trailing wife

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