An Afghan farmer sifts rice in his field in Nangarhar province east of Kabul.

Farmer-Soldiers from Missouri Help Afghan Farmers Modernize

23 January 2009

(Units are being drawn from the U.S. Army National Guard)

Washington — The United States is sending teams of U.S. Army National Guardsmen to Afghanistan to bolster security, but also to enhance the country's farming economy, senior Pentagon officials say.

The National Guard has developed the concept based on the notion that National Guardsmen are “citizen soldiers,” Army Secretary Pete Green said at a January 22 Pentagon briefing. The symbol of the National Guard is a Minuteman from the American Revolution who carries a musket in one hand and a plow in the other.

The Pentagon is creating National Guard Agricultural Development Teams with the aim of helping Afghan farmers to enhance their industry, Green said. Agriculture makes up 80 percent of the Afghan economy, and approximately 85 percent of the population is engaged in some form of agriculture.

National Guard volunteers from Guard units in the states of Texas, Missouri, Nebraska, Indiana, Tennessee, Kansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma are participating in the program, Green said, which is still in its early development. The concept came from the National Guardsmen themselves.

Members of the National Guard are reserve soldiers who do not serve full time in the armed forces, but are subject to being activated during times of emergency such as operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they have played major roles. The National Guard is composed of two parts — one that serves under the U.S. Army in the Army Guard and the other that serves under the U.S. Air Force in the Air Guard.

“We've got extraordinary agricultural experts, some who come out of academia, some who've grown up on a farm,” Green said. “They're taking this expertise and this experience and working on the ground at considerable personal risk and going into the rural areas, going out into the under-populated areas [to] share their experience and skills.”

Lieutenant General Clyde Vaughn, who is director of the National Guard, said the plan is to have 10 to 15 teams in the country when it is fully developed. The first team came from the Missouri National Guard and was sent to Nangarhar province. (See “Farmer-Soldiers from Missouri Help Afghan Farmers Modernize.”)

A Texas team has been in Ghazni province since May 2008 and will be replaced by another Texas team.

Coupled with the Agricultural Development Teams in Afghanistan are universities in the United States and the U.S. Agriculture Department, said Army Colonel Stan Poe, who commands the Texas Agricultural Development Team in Ghazni. He said his team works closely with the Provincial Reconstruction Team; when issues involving agriculture arise, they are passed to his team.

The Texas unit has 58 members, and 10 are experts in farm disciplines such as seeds, fertilizers, irrigation projects, electricity and soil analysis. All of the Guardsmen have farm backgrounds.

Poe said he works closely with the Ghaznian director of agriculture, irrigation and livestock, Sultan Hussein Abasyar. “Every project, every pursuit must be sustainable,” Poe said. “The largest challenges that we face related to agriculture in our area are availability of water and power.”

Power requirements are being met through micro-power systems like windmills and solar power on several projects. The team has helped develop a high school agricultural program to educate young people who work on their family farms.

The team is working with Afghans to build a slaughter facility and an animal hide-tanning facility that will employ 35 to 40 people. Future projects include a wheat seed farm that will serve as a model for 20 provinces and has the potential to employ 400 people, Poe said.