KABUL (Pajhwok): Nearly one and half times more fruits and vegetables have been exported during the first six months of the ongoing solar year comparing to the same period last year, an official said on Wednesday.
Farmers, however, demanded the construction of cold stores to further strengthen and consolidated the production of fruits and vegetables.
Afghanistan is an agricultural country where 70 percent of its people are associated with agriculture.
Due to the past four decades of conflict basic development work could not be done in different sectors, including the construction of standard cold stores for agricultural products.
Famers lost a large amount of their products are wasted due to the non-availability of agricultural products because proper attention had been not paid to build cold stores.
Surge in fruits, vegetables export
Abdul Salaam Jawad Akhundzada, spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce and Industries (MoCI), said 18,097 tonnes of fresh fruits exported during the first six months of ongoing year while 7,528 tonnes of fresh fruits exported last year during the same period.
He said 12,092 tonnes of vegetables mostly onion and Mash are exported during the first six months of ongoing year to India, Pakistan and Kazakistan. He did not had information regarding the vegetable export during the same period last year
Farmers’ complaints
Abdul Jameel, a farmer from the central Bamyan, province, said his yield declined this year compared to the past year.
He said: “This year potatoes yield was lesser, we have water secrecy issue, last year seven kilograms of potatoes were sold against 160 afs while this year the rate of the same quantity of potato was 100 afs, there is no proper market and its sale had declined.”
He linked decline in the potato price with decline in its export.
He said in previous years potatoes were exported to Iran, Kazakhistan, Uzbekistan but this year export did not take place outside the country.
Mohammad Saleh, another farmer from Bamyan province, had similar complaint and said besides the promotion of fruits and vegetables export attention should be paid to the construction of cold stores as well.
Orchards owners’ complaints
Ahmad Ameeri, one of the apples orchard owners in Maidan Wardak, province said that his orchard produced good yield.
He did not said how much apples his orchard produced but complained against the non-availability of cold store for fruits preservation.
He said: “Every year apples were exported to India, but this year the number of exporting companies had reduced because it take 17 days to dispatch apples to India.”
He said the import of fruits was also against the interest of orchard owners.
Khaliq Dad, other farmers in Kandahar province, said he collected decent yield this year but considering the value of agriculture yield the export volume had declined and Afghanistan’s pomegranates only exported to Pakistan.
He said: “Currently, the Pakistan route is also closed and when the gateway is closed then what could we do and when the businessmen suffer losses common people also suffer losses.”
Akhtar Mohammad Ahmadi, head of the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Businessmen Union, said due to the none-availability of proper market and absence of cold stores agriculture products are sold on the road at a low price.
Referring to the importance of cold stores, he said: “When our season is off then different types of vegetable and fruits are imported an sold at a high rate, few cold stores are available but all did not have access to them, government should take steps for the creation of cold stores.”
He added some private cold stores are available but businessmen select the fee themselves.
Ministry’s response
Commerce ministry’s spokesperson said many efforts had been made to promote the export of agriculture products, including fruits and vegetables.
He said: “In terms of export some facilities had been created such as cherries are exported to India from Panjsher province in a refrigerator trucks.”
He said this year fresh fruits, dried fruits, vegetables and salads are exported to Arab countries, Turkey, Russia, China and India.
Akhundzada said after 30 years the ministry signed pometranents export contract with Russia and efforts were underway to explore better markets for Afghan products.
Referring to the construction of up to the slandered cold stores, he said 14 standard cold stores existed in the country and work on the creation of hundreds of cold stores was underway.
He added: “Office of the PM order that the number of cold storages existed during the republic and were either non-functional or semi-functional should be without any delay reconstructed so that they can be used by traders and farmers.”
He said: “Cold stores are available in Kabul, Parwan, Balkh, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Khost and Paktia provinces and some are being constructed, some have started functioning in Kabul and this will slowly progress, we hope that one day we will become self-sufficient, we will be able to store our products in our cold stores and supply them to the market in proper time.”
Akhundzada said that in the past there were some problems in the export of fruits and vegetables to Pakistan and it was delayed, but the issue was discussed with other countries and an understanding was reached that if there was danger of fruits and vegetables being spoiled sooner, the containers will reach the ports as soon as possible.
Referring to the damage to some fruits and vegetables on its way to Pakistan, last year he said: “Pakistan was doing this in violation to all international rules and regulations and due to this problem our two nations had suffered, we hope that Pakistan will not only now but in the future cooperate in this regard and take full advantage of the trade ties between the two nations
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