National Comprehensive Agriculture Development Priority Program 2016 – 2021.

Afghanistan’s agriculture importance and its central role in creating national wealth and providing employment opportunities are undisputed. The setting of seven immediate priorities by the President of Afghanistan is an important point of departure for the Minister of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL). These priorities cover key institutional and sectoral priorities for the MAIL in the areas of improved service delivery, food security, and greater productivity to enhance national revenue. The specific redirection of priorities is in the following sectors in the form of seven Strategic Priorities: Irrigation; Wheat and cereal production; Horticulture value chain; Livestock Production; Climate-sensitive Natural Resources Management; Food and Nutrition Security and Resilience building; and Institutional reform and capacity development. The above priorities will include many of the normative integrated activities such as Research and Extension, Integrated Pest Management; Input Delivery Systems; Quality Control; Quarantine; Farmer Organizations, Public & Private Partnerships; Data and Information; Policy and Legal Framework; and Governance and Coordination.
Vision: Food and nutrition security, a balanced economic growth through agriculture, resulting in stability and economic empowerment of women and men. A farmer centric institution that is responsive and tailors its offerings to promote quality services; access to innovative technologies; rationalizes and increases production; regulates inputs; creates employment opportunities and contributes to economic growth and generation of capital across the country. Over the next five years, MAIL will continue to pursue an economic development strategy based on private sector investment in value-chain processing to stimulate market-driven demand and agricultural productivity. This will be achieved through the establishment of a variety of strategic initiatives to attract international large-scale domestic private sector investment as well as strengthening farmer groups, cooperatives, small and medium size enterprises all of which form the nucleus of private sector and market development. The ultimate aim being the provision of employment and security for local people, which in turn stimulate economic development.
MAIL will seek to incorporate relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in all its activities. Recognizing that poverty is a major challenge in Afghanistan, MAIL is focusing on Goal 1 of the SDGs and specifically on targets 5, 6 and 7 on building resilience for the poor; mobilize resources to address poverty in all its forms and develop pro-poor policies that target gender and increased investment in providing opportunities to eradicate poverty. While women play a critical role in agriculture and food security, accounting for nearly 43% of the sector’s labor force, they still remain on the periphery with limited access to productive resources (8.2). Despite their important contribution towards the fight against food insecurity and poverty and their significant role in natural resource management, women are subjected to different types of social and economic exclusions. These restrict their access to productive resources and economic opportunities to develop their full potential. Their participation is primarily family-based, without remuneration and they are rarely compensated for their labor in terms of time allocated.
Strategic Priority are: Despite frequent natural disasters and the impact of climate change, Afghanistan remains a country, rich in natural resources (forest, rangelands). These resources have a significant economic, social and cultural value (6.5). Although Afghanistan has made acknowledged advances in cataloguing its natural assets, passing laws and developing policies, further progress has been constrained by contested land ownership, land grabbing, etc., and the case-by-case approach undertaken by the National Land Authority is complex and time consuming. In addition, with climate change becoming a global priority, MAIL is currently comparing its approaches to neighboring countries in tandem with the recent COP21 framework.