USA brings fungus-resistant wheat seed to Afghanistan

Date:11-09-2010

The US Agriculture Department has shipped 150 tons of UG99 fungus-resistant wheat seed from Egypt to Afghanistan “to protect future crops, improve the livelihoods of thousands of Afghan farmers, and improve food security”, the US embassy said. 
 
"This seed will be multiplied this year, and by next year [when it is distributed to farmers] it should be adequate to cover approximately 5 percent or more of wheat production area in Afghanistan,” Mireille L. Zieseniss, assistant press attaché at the US embassy in Kabul, told IRIN.
 
The expected multiplication, however, will be highly dependent upon favourable weather conditions. The country is prone to drought and floods among other natural disasters.
 
Millions of Afghans are chronically food insecure and the country struggles to produce enough cereals to meet domestic demand even in a good year, experts say.