Recent rains reduce drought level this year: MAIL

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) has said recent rainfalls in the first two months of spring reduced drought in the country.

The snow and rainfall in winter last solar year was limited in Afghanistan and people were worried a possible drought would hit their farms.

Mohammad NasimMuradi, head of Meteorology Department of Afghanistan, told Pajhwok Afghan News that their data from 22 stations in the country showed the rainfall was 35 percent less last winter compared to the previous winter.

He said that rainfalls in the spring of current solar year was also limited compared to the same period last year.

However, Muradi said that the level of rainfall during the first two months of the current spring season was higher compared to the same period in the last two years.

 Drought based on provinces

Akbar Rustami, spokesman of MAIL in an interview with Pajhwok Afghan News said that the Afghan government had performed some analysis about drought in the country.

He said their analysis showed the drought level was lesser in Badghis, Faryab, Jawzjan and Herat provinces considering higher level of rainfalls there.

The level of drought in Balkh, Nimroz, Sar-i-Pul, Samangan, Kandahar, Helmand, Farah and Ghor provinces is worth concerning and is on medium level, he added.

He said the situation in other provinces was normal. The drought level in 2018 was higher compared to the ongoing year, Rustami said.

General agriculture and livestock situation this year

Afghans are worried about their farms and livestock in the ongoing 1400 solar year considering the limited snowfalls during last winter.

However, Akbar Rustami said that recent rainfalls were significant and reduced the drought level for the agriculture sector.

“The rainfalls during the first two months of spring this year can reduce drought to a high extent,” he said.

“Our analysis show that our agriculture situation, particularly fruits and vegetables would not face any issues, we will only face some problems about grains, particularly wheat,” Rustami said.

However, he added that besides wheat farms, drought this year would also somehow affect the livestock sector.

Livestock owners, farmers and gardeners fear drought

Mohammad Akbar, a livestock owner in Shiberghan city, capital of Jawzjan, said that they faced serious drought in the province and they may lose their livestock due to shortage of pastures.

He asked the government to help farmers, gardeners and livestock owners in resolving their problems.

Rafiullah, a resident of Qala-i-Kashmiri area of MaidanWardak province said, “We should have cultivated wheat in the last month of 1399 solar year and first month of 1400 solar year, but we could not due to shortage of rainfalls, farmers even worried that they would not be able to grow potatoes, bean and onion due to lack of rainfalls, but later God changed His plan.”

He said that local streams were now full of water following recent rainfalls in their areas.

In some areas where the ground water level is deep and people dig wells, the problem of water shortage still persists, he said.

He said that the government should implement assistive programs for farmers in such areas.

MAIL programs for drought-affected farmers

MAIL spokesman said that the ministry had programs of distributing animal feed to livestock owners in areas affected by the drought.

The ministry is also working on a plan to provide to drought-affected people including farmers, livestock owners and even ordinary people and is in talks with donor organizations in this regard.

“The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock has been working on some projects including an irrigation project that can cover farmlands in drought affected areas,” he said.

He said that the ministry started work on 127 irrigation networks and completed 133 other irrigation networks recently that consumed more than 1.7 billion afghanis.

A number of other projects are also under work and they would be completed in the near future, he concluded.

Mds/ma

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