CIIFAD's involvement in Afghanistan began with a request by Senator Clinton's office to join the New York Campaign for a Green Afghanistan. Faculty at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences met to determine how Cornell might become involved. Initially, the thrust of this initiative involved rebuilding the orchards, working with a small NGO, Global Partnership for Afghanistan. Faculty members with expertise in the areas of fruit breeding, production and disease and insect management initially met to consider how they could contribute to the revitalization of Afghan fruit farms.

Since the initial meetings, a CIIFAD-led group involving both faculty and graduate students has visited Afghanistan and developed an agenda which includes the following priority areas: horticulture (apples, grapes and vegetables and other crops), market/business, water resources/irrigation, agriculture, livestock, institutional capacity (extension, university partnerships) women's issues, health and nutrition. Our priorities are capacity building at the university level, developing materials for use by NGOs and extension staff and involvement in applied research projects with NGO, university and government collaborators. Descriptions of current activities are listed below.

Capacity-Building Efforts at Kabul and Balkh Universities

In conjunction with Purdue University, CIIFAD is working to improve the educational capacity of universities. Already, Cornell’s TEEAL (The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library) program is in use at Kabul University. In addition, faculty exchanges, graduate programs, curriculum development, teaching workshops, short courses, joint research projects and computer training are among the joint university-CIIFAD activities that are in the planning stages.

Agroforestry

CIIFAD is actively working on a USAID-funded agroforestry project in collaboration with the Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA), a New York-based NGO with projects on the development of wood lots and fruit crops in Afghanistan. Professor Ian Merwin, whose expertise is in tree fruits, visited Afghanistan and consulted with local farmers in Logor, Pol-e-Khomri and Kholm, three GPFA-selected sites. He is interested in assembling materials for use in the field by extensionists or NGOs.  CIIFAD recently obtained USAID funding for a two-year project with GPFA on “Private and Community Forestry for Natural Resource Management: Sustainable Strategies for Village- and Farmer-Based Forestry Initiatives.� The three major objectives for this project are:

• Sustainable increases in tree cultivation by private woodlot owners, including increased familiarity with a range of varieties, their uses, and cultivation approaches
• Increased profitability of woodlot businesses based on a market survey on tree and wood needs, business skill development and access to business-enabling mechanisms (credit, associations, services)
• Enhanced community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) via dialogue, survey and demonstration of economic, environmental and social benefits derived from sustainable land use

For more information on CIIFAD's Collaborative Afghanistan Initiative, contact Peter Hobbs.