The Hope of a Helpless Farmer has Revived

The poverty level in Afghanistan especially in Khost province has tremendously been increased over the past months due to the recent conflicts, political changes, drought, unemployment and other disasters. Communities in Ismailkhil Mandozi district of Khost province are primarily dependent on agriculture which has unfortunately been seriously affected due to the recent drought and the farmer households live in emergency situation of food security where many households have no income to meet their daily food needs.

Organization for Human Relief (OHR) implemented the Afghanistan Local Economic Development (ALED II) project in Tanni and Ismailkhil Mandozi districts of Khost province, Quick Impact Action is one of the project components which can rapidly respond to the most urgent and dire needs of the communities in rehabilitation.

We have come up with a consultation session with communities and found that there was urgent need of irrigation water for the crops, while there were three existing underground canals (Karizes) which were damaged and had no water. The three underground water canals (Karizes) were damaged due to filled with soil and mud, and thus water could not come out to irrigate the agricultural lands, this problem was found during the initial interactions with the communities as their priority need, further discussions made during the consultation sessions with the network members, community elders, youth and the district officials and this has been selected to be rehabilitated under the Quick Impact Action component of the project.

These three Karizes have been rehabilitated and cleaned during the month of July 2022 consisted underground parts of the 15 wells and 2.5 km surface canals. 50 labors worked in the rehabilitation and these labors were able to have a short term income for their households. As the result of the work, water has come up and flown in the canal for irrigation of the agricultural lands, a total of 1201 households are benefited from use of the water and 1593 Jerib (318.6 hectare) of agricultural land is irrigated. People of the communities were happy after completion of the work and are hopeful for having their agricultural products this season because of having water to irrigate their lands.

An elderly Uncle Mohammad Safdar who is a farmer and head of the 12 members’ household says “We are hopeful this season – I am irrigating my crops on-time and will have higher harvest Insha’Allah”.

As uncle Safdar’s wish of having irrigation water for his agricultural land has been fulfilled, he hopes that his wish for getting a better harvest will be fulfilled in coming few months too. “Thanks to UNDP and the OHR for helping a poor farmer like me,” he said.