Snow damages 90pc of Samangan almond orchards

AIBAK (Pajhwok): Snowstorms and heavy rains have damaged 90 percent of almond trees in northern Samangan province, causing millions of afghanis loss to gardeners.

A number of Samangan gardeners say they collect hundreds of tons of almond from their orchards annually but recent snowfalls destroyed all the fruit.

Amrullah, 41, a resident, said they usually collected hundreds of tons of almond annually and the fruit was a great source of income for them, but two days ago snowfall completely destroyed the orchards.

He owned over 200 trees of almond and collected 1647 kilograms of the fruit which earned him nearly 500,000 afghanis last year, but the trees were damaged this year by the snow.

Haji Zia, 66, an orchard owner in Larghan village of Aibak city, capital of Samangan, said he earned 800,000 afghanis from almond sales last year, but the recent snowfall destroyed their dreams this year.

Besides almond, apricot trees were also damaged in the snow and the trees cannot produce fruit this year, he said.

On the other hand, Mohammad Rahman Arghandiwal, Samangan agriculture director, confirmed orchard owners’ statements and said, “The weather reached minus six Celsius last week; that was the reason the buds of the trees were destroyed by cold but the buds which are not blossomed are undamaged.”

He said their statistics show 5,000 hectares of land has been cultivated with almond trees in Hazrat Sultan and Khuram Sarbagh districts of the province and orchard owners could collect more than 2,000 tons of the fruit from the gardens.

Orchard owners could earn 500 million afghanis from selling the fruit next year, he said. Arghandiwal said that their estimations show 90 percent of almond trees had damaged by cold weather which dealt a huge loss to orchard owners.

Mds/ma