Pubdate: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) Copyright: 2007 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Contact: http://www.stltoday.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418 Author: Philip Dine, Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Afghanistan (Afghanistan) MISSOURI GUARDSMEN LEAD AGRICULTURAL INVASION EFFORT WASHINGTON - Capt. Doug Dunlap and Master Sgt. Jim Schulte are battle-hardened Missouri National Guard veterans with tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan behind them. But both returned a few weeks ago from a quite different type of mission, having used their other area of expertise - as Missouri farmers. Dunlap and Schulte are involved in the early phase of an American effort to turn around Afghanistan's struggling agricultural sector, which employs about 80 percent of the nation's people. The dominant crop in Afghanistan is opium-producing poppies that have fueled the world's drug trade. The program aims to help Afghan farmers growing traditional crops - which include apricots, eggplants and pomegranates - through cold storage, better irrigation, high-quality seeds and modern planting techniques. It also aims to ween others from growing poppy by showing that traditional crops can be profitable. Dunlap and Schulte were startled by what they encountered when they were carrying shovels instead of rifles. For Dunlap, the most moving moment was the sheer joy that spread across the face of an elderly Afghan farmer upon learning the simple technique of staking his plants to keep tomatoes from falling to the ground and rotting. Several generations of the man's family gathered around as he proudly demonstrated the "new" trick. Schulte witnessed a different kind of pride among religious leaders, farmers and local officials who assured him at every turn that they didn't want a handout, simply assistance in building a self-sufficient agricultural sector. "They have mostly 15th-or 16th-century technology," Schulte said. "They're plowing fields with one-row, ox-drawn wooden plows. When we talked about the future, they said, 'We need your support and your guidance; we'll provide the work.'" Cantaloupes the size of watermelons - an Afghan staple - also impressed the men, but overplanted corn that yielded too little stock did not. Along with the Missouri National Guard, the Missouri Farm Bureau is involved, and the University of Missouri's College of Agriculture has agreed to lend its expertise. Afghanistan once was a breadbasket for South Asia, and a major exporter of exotic fruits, nuts and dried fruit, before 30 years of Soviet occupation and civil war, destruction and neglect of the agricultural infrastructure. A seven-year drought that ended in 2005 made things even worse. The National Guard Bureau in Washington has chosen the Missouri National Guard to run the pilot effort, which is taking place in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar. Its lush soil and the presence of the Kabul River make it a potentially fertile area. If Missouri's pilot program succeeds, military and political officials in Washington say it will be replicated across Afghanistan by National Guard units from other states, tailored to specific Afghan provinces partly by climate. For example, the National Guard in arid states such as Arizona, New Mexico or Nevada would be sent to the desertlike parts of Afghanistan, while soldiers in Colorado could be deployed in mountainous sections of the country. "A lot rests on the shoulders of our team," said Missouri National Guard spokeswoman Capt. Tammy Spicer. "We're pretty excited to be the first on this." Missouri was chosen to lead the program for several reasons: the farming background of many of its Guard troops, the similarity of Missouri's climate and soil to some of the most fertile Afghan provinces and the Missouri roots of the director of the Army National Guard in Washington, Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn. FIRST TRIP The fledgling effort's first trip to Afghanistan, in February, was basically a "reconnaissance mission," says Paul LePage, a board member of the Missouri Farm Bureau and retired command master sergeant in the Army Reserves who has a farm along the Missouri River outside Jefferson City. He spent two weeks in Kandahar Province with Vaughn and Maj. Gen. King Sidwell of the Missouri National Guard. "We went over there to see what it looked like on the ground and maybe get some ideas and communicate with a few of the locals over there, get their thoughts and see if there really was any possibility to do what Gen. Vaughn had in mind to lure those Afghan farmers into raising something other than poppy," LePage said. "People in that country are actually starving. Their supply of food is really short. They have no grocery stores." Kandahar, where Osama bin Laden planned the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is a volatile region with a violent insurgency and thriving narcotics trade. Missouri's program was subsequently shifted to Nangarhar, on the eastern Afghan border with Pakistan. The province, which is more secure, also more closely mirrors the growing conditions in Missouri. Schulte, a Florissant native, owns 25 acres between Jefferson City and Fulton. A 35-year National Guard veteran, he served in 2005 as an embedded trainer with the Afghan National Army, and now works in plans, operations and training at Guard headquarters in Jefferson City. Dunlap's farm experience began as a youngster in his family's farming business in Poplar Bluff; he also has a degree in agricultural economics from the University of Missouri. He commanded a unit in Iraq in 2005. To serve as executive officer for the new Agri-business Development Team, he has taken a leave from his job as a branch president for three rural banks. OUTMODED WAYS During their 10-day trip, the two men saw Afghan farmers struggling to survive without the most rudimentary infrastructure. When the harvest comes ripe, with the roads so poor and no cold storage available, farmers sell what they can locally - and then Pakistanis cross the border and buy the rest cheaply. "Then four months later, they sell it back to the same people and charge four times as much as they paid for it," Dunlap said. Providing cold storage would alleviate that problem, but without available electricity, the Guard is looking into low-tech options, such as caves or root-cellars in homes. Unprotected produce wilts and rots quickly in the blistering sun, he said. Also critical is improving the ancient irrigation system for the long valley where Nangarhar's farms are located. "It was 120 degrees while we were on the ground," Dunlap said. "If the ground's not irrigated, after about a week it turns back to desert." He described how farmers spend 15 or 20 minutes to dig a hole to release water from the dam, then let it flood their small fields via a system of small ditches and canals. "They manipulate the water with shovels. They will stand out there with their shovels and hoes and make sure the water gets to each individual plant in the paddock, then fill in the hole in the levy with their shovel, and go to the next little half-acre or acre," Dunlap said. TARGETING TALIBAN The full 50-member Missouri team is expected to be deployed early next year. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., said previous U.S. efforts to improve agriculture have largely failed. "Our nation's National Guard, however, is uniquely positioned to lend the skills and talents of its citizen soldiers - from agriculture, agribusiness and engineering - to help the Afghans rebuild their society," Bond said. Marc Linit, associate dean of the University of Missouri's College of Agriculture, says that he will be briefed in a few days by the Missouri National Guard and that the college will provide its expertise as requested. "I really believe that if we can reduce the poppy level, we're taking funding away from al-Qaida and the Taliban," the farm bureau's LePage said. "That's where they get their bucks. If this thing works like I think it can work, we're going to save a lot of bullets. We're not going to whip them in those mountains with bullets, but I do believe this - if the people of Afghanistan can raise enough food, feed those people better than they're being fed right now, I think we'll have great friends there." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek