FOOD AID IN AFGHANISTAN

Geoff Q-B is in Kabul working as a senior advisor to the 'AVIPA Plus Program' being run by International Relief & Development (IRD) for USAID. "AVIPA Plus" stands for Afghanistan Vouchers for Increased Productive Agriculture" and more information can be found on it on the IRD web site at http://www.ird.org.

Briefly, however, the project has distributed vouchers for certified wheat seed and fertilizer (Urea and DAP) to subsistence farmers throughout the growing area. 47,000 hectares of land (irrigated and rain fed) have been covered with substantial yield increases. Jobs have been created and improvements made in the value chain.

The challenge now is to extend the project into other areas and other sub-sectors of agriculture.