Interventions such as our Central Asia Poverty programme address spatial poverty through the development of productive assets, including irrigation channels, greenhouses, animal sheds, storage facilities, roads and bridges. Over 261,000 people are using infrastructure constructed by AKF or our partners.

With around 80 percent of the Afghan population dependent on agriculture, interventions in this sector are central to reducing poverty rates. AKF’s agriculture and NRM programme has led to increased production, improved food security, better climate resilience and stronger connections to markets for local farmers.

The programme has reached more than 2.1 million beneficiaries through its work in field crops and horticulture, land and water management, and livestock.

Since 2003, we have supported 35 private input suppliers that are now fully sustainable and provide improved seed varieties, fertilisers, pesticides, agricultural equipment, training and technical services, such as pruning, to over 400,000 farmers annually. Nine fully-privatised mother stock nurseries provide varieties of more than 80,000 improved root-stock and saplings to more than 1,000 farmers per year. These interventions have contributed to increases in the average productivity of wheat (58 percent), potato (25 percent), apple (116 percent) and vegetables (25 percent) since 2005.

On-farm skills development takes place through farmer field schools, participatory technology development groups, integrated crop management trials, demonstration orchards and field crop plots. These interventions allow farmers to share their experiences with improved varieties and new technologies. We are now focusing on teaching government extension workers to train farmers through these schools.

We also provided significant support to government agriculture research stations in three provinces, four biological pest control labs covering the programme area and a virus-indexing laboratory in Kabul. Most of these institutions were then handed over to the government.

To promote sustainable management of natural resources, AKF has trained Community Development Councils to implement common property resource plans across the programme area. These plans are complemented by land treatment measures that redress the extensive denudation of watersheds and rangelands. In 2021, 42,000 hectares of land were under improved management.

We have also established 35 Livestock Development Centres (LDCs), 80 percent of which are now fully privatised. These LDCs and 140 associated Livestock Development Field Units have provided access to animal health services for more than 1.2 million people. Livestock farmers in target areas have reported a 65 percent reduction in animal mortality and morbidity, and farmers reported a 35-40 percent increase in milk and meat production and 25 percent increase in herd size.