As President Obama moves forward in implementing his policies in Afghanistan, it has become clear that agriculture will play an important role. A recent White House press briefing indicated that President Obama did not want to over look the importance of re-building the country from the ground up:That's one of the most important things the President mentioned, but which could get otherwise missed: agricultural-sector job creation. We're talking to Secretary Vilsack about that; the U.S. Department of Agriculture is going to get much more involved.To read the entire White House press briefing, click here.
This is a rural country. There is no agricultural -- senior agricultural attaché in the mission right now. AID and USDA don't work together. We're going to fix all that, I hope. We're going to go to -- we're going to emphasize wheat; it's a wheat culture, and the current wheat is very low in nutrients. President Obama is personally enthusiastic and interested in this.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said there would be more reliance on a civilian surge in these regions of the world:
I think what we are really interested in for the longer term from our partners and our allies is helping us with this civilian surge in terms of experts in agriculture and finance and government and so on to help us improve the situation inside Afghanistan.To read the full story from Voice of America News, click here.
Already the Missouri National Guard has deployed its second Agri-Business Development Team (ADT) to Afghanistan to help locals to improve water availability, marketable produce, food storage and animal viability. The team is relying on many resources back home, including Lincoln University, University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri Farm Bureau. To read more about the development work being done by the ADT, click here to read the Belleville News-Democrat story and here for a summary from The National Guard.
