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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Asia Pacific World NATO aid yet to bear fruit for Afghan farmers AFP - Friday, April 9 Send IM Story Print Afghan farmers work their land in Yosef Khel district of Paktika province on April 2. The development arm of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has distributed about 13,500 trees and offered training to farmers across half of Paktika. Developing skills and infrastructure in Afghanistan is part of the new US strategy to try to improve the country's plight. YOSEF KHEL, Afghanistan (AFP) - – Afghan farmer Adam Khan is bemused by NATO's gift of a small walnut tree. It cannot earn money, but he planted it next to 550 other trees he bought with his own money and will wait to see if more useful assistance comes. "Due to the large number of people here I got one tree. I mixed it with the other trees in my garden. The trees are young and they are not profitable for us," said the 35-year-old, whose family has farmed for centuries. Across the countryside in his home province of Paktika, in eastern Afghanistan, dust devils spiral up from the brown land with only a handful of spindly trees and bushes breaking the monotony of desert and rock. It is hard to believe much can grow in the harsh, dry landscape, yet more than 80 percent of local people are farmers, raising livestock and tending the land to grow wheat, barley, fruit and vegetables. But they are struggling after years of almost constant drought, piling woes on a population suffering from nearly nine years of conflict between the Taliban and US-led forces. Paktika was largely deforested before the hardline Taliban came to power in 1996. A generation of farmers had already fled the 10-year Soviet military presence and the civil war that followed their withdrawal in 1989. But the development arm of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has distributed about 13,500 trees and offered training to farmers across half of Paktika. Developing skills and infrastructure in Afghanistan is part of the new US strategy to try to improve the country's plight. "The more people are employed and the more money and income they have, the less likely they are to be recruited by the Taliban," said Commander Brian Hoyt, who heads ISAF's Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in western Paktika. The project in Paktika costs 750,000 dollars, with organisers hopeful it will help prevent soil erosion and bring new, more profitable strains of fruit trees to the region. Major Todd Mitchell, the civil-military operations chief at the PRT based at Camp Sharana, near Paktika's capital, said they aim to introduce new hybrid trees that will in future yield a faster-growing crop. Poplar and willow trees have also been planted around waterways so the root systems can help stabilise the soil and prevent water loss. "It is a bit of a risk, any time you try to introduce a new technique, especially in a conservative society that we have in Paktika... but we do know that they are open to innovation," he said. But development organisations have criticised PRTs for bringing aid with a military face, therefore making projects a Taliban target and endangering non-military aid workers. A report by aid agencies said last year that projects are often linked to military objectives and short-term goals, with little long-term benefit or sustainability when coalition forces eventually leave Afghanistan. Abdul Hamid, an Afghan who works as an agriculture expert for the PRT, said farmers only get up to five trees each, which is not enough to turn around their fortunes. The trees were also bought from a US development organisation operating elsewhere in Afghanistan, rather than locally, he said. About 300 farmers trained in agricultural techniques in Yosef Khel district still rely on handouts as many of the modern pesticides, fertilisers and fungicides they were taught to use are not available in the nearby markets. Mitchell accepted that some of those chemicals are unavailable locally but added: "At some point the law of supply and demand will take over." The farmers, meanwhile, say lack of water is their main problem and they need help to build more dams and irrigation projects. Hamid has proposed a project where the PRT funds a nursery of trees under his supervision, so that after two years enough saplings can be given to farmers so they can grow a full orchard. "We need trees to manage by ourselves.... If we manage it ourselves we know the date of the tree, the variety of the tree," he said. He is waiting to hear if he has secured funding. 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