JALALABAD (Pajhwok): The Nangarhar Canal Department supplies 2.8 tonnes of cucumber from its greenhouses daily to the market, an official said on Wednesday.
Canal Department Director Maulvi Ghulam Rahman Kazeem said as many as 20 greenhouses had been rehabilitated under their supervision and most them started producing yield.
He said vegetables grown in these greenhouses have met to some extent provincial vegetable demand. More efforts would be made to expand the network of greenhouses.
Local official plan to build more than 1,000 greenhouses in Nangarhar to meet local vegetable demand and create work opportunities for people.
Some greenhouses in Nangarhar have started giving yields. Cucumber is one of the vegetables grown in some of the greenhouses.
Shamsur Rahman, a contractor who has cultivated cucumber on his greenhouse, said: “About 2.8 tonnes of cucumber is produced daily. Over the next 10 days, this level will surge to seven tonnes.”
He hoped: “The people of Afghanistan will benefit from the process if it moves forward. We will no more need foreign products and will have our own products.”
Naseebullah, a greenhouse worker, believed Afghan youth would not need to go abroad if they were provided work opportunities at home.
The department was created five decades ago to promote agriculture in Nangarhar province.
It has grown olive, orange, lemon, date and kinnow orchards on huge swaths of land in the province.
nh/mud
