Afghanistan Ag Projects Pivot Quickly to Meet COVID-19 Challenges
The Roots of Peace team in Afghanistan was intensely focused on supporting farmers’ efforts to expand into crucial new trade markets when the first signs of COVID-19 threatened to kill their momentum.
As borders and markets shut down, Afghan growers, packers, and traders suddenly faced overwhelming uncertainty.
How would they sell perishable produce, find cold storage, deal with delays at ports and lack of air transportation, and prepare for the coming harvests?
The Roots of Peace staff in Kabul and provincial satellite offices moved early and swiftly in the face of the pandemic.
“Because it’s agriculture, we can’t delay. The planting, growing, and picking seasons all happen regardless of whether you are ready or not,” said Jeanne-Marie Cresalia, Roots of Peace chief of staff.
The teams on the ground swiftly puzzled together high-tech and low-tech solutions so they could continue supporting agribusiness during the lockdown, which isn’t easy in war-torn, rural communities that have weak internet access at best.
But they had to pivot quickly because so much is at stake.
Afghanistan is where Roots of Peace launched its first humanitarian mission in 2003, after three decades of war left the farming infrastructure in ruins. Since then, projects have empowered Afghans to revitalize their fields and orchards – apricots, apples, almonds, grapes, cherries, melons, and more. Thanks to grower education and trade building, more than 5 million trees have been planted, 10,000 jobs created, and $125 million in goods exported.
“Our strategy now is to prepare to hit the ground running as soon as the markets reopen,” said Reid Lohr, chief of party for the Roots of Peace Agriculture Marketing Program.
COVID-19 hits the Middle East
When Iran confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on Feb. 19, the spread to Afghanistan seemed inevitable, especially as Afghans working in Iran hurried home across porous borders.
“As soon as COVID-19 was diagnosed in Iran, we shut down all our organization’s movements in Afghanistan because we would have been the perfect way to spread the virus,” Jeanne-Marie explained.
The Roots of Peace model traditionally depends on hands-on workshops in fields, meetings at markets, and attending trade shows. That was no longer safe.
By early March, Roots of Peace had sent its five international staff members home and arranged for the Afghan professional staff to work from their homes on old laptops.
The hardest part? Troubleshooting spotty wireless service, Jeanne-Marie said.
When life locks down in a developed country, most businesses can continue seamlessly online. It’s a whole different story in war-ravaged, rural communities where Wi-Fi is weak at best, computers are ancient, and cell phones aren’t very smart.
“We started to think about how are we going to do those on-site trainings if we can’t get people to their satellite locations,” Jeanne-Marie said.
One solution: The Afghan team recorded instructional videos with low resolution that can be accessed even in wobbly Wi-Fi situations.
“Things will slow down a lot, but at same time crops keep on growing. Hopefully, they will have places for their crops to go,” she said.
That’s where Reid and his Agriculture Marketing Production team, working with USAID, comes in.
Trying to Save a Critical Industry
Reid, who arrived home in South Carolina on March 8, and his team have been busy strategizing from afar.
“I’m herding cats on the different continents and multiple time zones,” he said, explaining that the AMP staff and consultants are now spread out in countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, India, Istanbul, and Dubai.
It’s been a barrage of emails, Zoom meetings and calls at all hours on Skype or WhatsApp.
The Commercial Horticulture and Agriculture Marketing Program began in 2010 to help boost exports by training farmers, traders, and facility workers on sorting, grading, and packaging to improve product quality and quantity.
COVID-19 hit at a time when the team was galvanizing exciting new connections with global exporters and supermarket retailers, especially in India and Turkey.
Afghan agribusinesses now face massive challenges. Shipping is severely limited and cold storage is lacking, Reid explained.
Dried fruit harvested last fall is in danger of rotting as summer heats up. June and July are busy months for grape, apricot, almond, mulberry, and melon harvests. Exports of fresh fruits could be completely lost. Cargo planes might be hired for shipments, but at a very dear price.
During the last several weeks, AMP has interviewed more than 50 agribusinesses in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, Balkh, Nangarhar, and Ghazn to learn about their immediate survival needs and make plans to hit the ground running the minute trade and travel restrictions lift.
The ultimate objective is resiliency because, as Reid explained, coronaviruses have been around for a long time (only COVID-19 is new) and the industry must prepare for possible future pandemics.
“It is obvious that the agribusiness sector we left will not be the same when we return,” Reid said.
