LASHKARGAH (Pajhwok): Bost Enterprise of southern Helmand province has resumed operations after months of suspension and would buy 4,000 tons of cotton worth 260 million afghanis from local farmers, an official said on Tuesday.
For more than two months after the Taliban took control of the country, the enterprise’s activities, like many other factories, came to a standstill.
Now officials announced the agency's resumption of functioning and say that it has practically started buying cotton from local farmers.
Rizwan, an official of the Ministry of Finance in Helmand, told Pajhwok Afghan News that the Bost Enterprise had resumed operations and started buying cotton from farmers.
"Helmand’s Bost Enterprise had a budget of 160 million afghanis last year, this year it has a budget of 100 million afghanis which would be used for purchasing 4,000 tons of raw cotton from farmers,” he said.
He said that the cotton will be processed in a factory of Bost Enterprise from which oil, soap, press cake and other products will be also produced.
Helmand farmers are happy that Bost Enterprise has reopened and their cotton found a good market.
Mustafa is one of the farmers in Helmand who has grown cotton on his farmland.
"We praise the government's decision to reactivate the Bost Enterprise and buy cotton from farmers," he said.
If Bost Enterprise buys cotton from farmers every year, more farmers will be encouraged to grow it on their farmlands, he said.
He said that selling their products to the enterprise would help them become self-sustain economically and switch to legal cultivation instead of illegal poppy cultivation.
Noor Ahmad, another farmer, asked Bost Enterprise to buy cotton from farmers at a good price as they had no any market for it in the last few years.
Helmand cotton, once known as "silver ", was long processed at the Bost Enterprise factory, but it was closed for a decade due to war and other bad conditions.
The factory was inaugurated by the previous government last year and a special budget was also approved for it, which has so far generated good revenue.
Helmand is one of the provinces in the south of the country where 80 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture and livestock.
Mds/ma
