It's a winding road to food security - The Moral Economy

THE ANNUAL World Food Day on Oct. 16 always focuses our attention on the problems of hunger in various parts of the world.

This year, when Canadians are hearing daily news from Afghanistan, I have been paying particular attention to the problems of farmers and food production in that troubled country.

The news out of Afghanistan on the food question is not good. Nearly half of the people are suffering food shortages. And, as elsewhere, women and children are the most vulnerable.

In the meantime, almost 400,000 acres of agricultural land are growing opium poppies instead of food. Despite the valiant and costly coalition force’s “war on drugs,” poppy acres are increasing.

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The government of Canada recently recognized the ongoing food crisis. During a surprise visit to Afghanistan, the minister for international co-operation announced that $5 million of the committed Canadian aid to Afghanistan would be spent on food aid in Kandahar province. This money will help to feed about 12,000 families in the Panjwaii and Zhari districts where Canadian forces have been engaged in military operations.

The food aid is desperately needed because these families were evacuated from their orchards, vegetable farms and vineyards during the two month Operation Medusa in order to reduce civilian deaths and injuries. Animals and crops had to be left behind unattended.

As any farmer knows, leaving the farm during the peak growing season can’t be a good thing. Much of the crop in the fertile valleys was damaged or lost due to heavy bombing, looting and neglect.

Add to that damage the road that Canadian forces are building to connect Panjwaii and Zhari.This broad, straight road will improve the movement of goods and be easier to patrol in a territory that is volatile and dangerous.

But the road runs through a fertile valley. It is being bulldozed through precious crop and orchard land. Worse still, it has choked off water from creeks that irrigate many of these fields.

The displaced farm families returning after the fighting are finding their homes damaged or destroyed and their crops lying in ruin. The broad straight road may well be “paved with good intentions” but it is also the focus of anger, fear and despair.

Massive and immediate food aid will be needed to ward off starvation this year and possibly for many years to come. But imported food aid is not a sustainable, long-term solution.

In Afghanistan, as elsewhere in the world, encouraging and supporting local food production is much more likely to keep hunger at bay in the long run.

In a poor, dry, mountainous country like Afghanistan, the hard job of growing food should not be made more difficult. There, as here, the knowledge, needs and dignity of rural people must be taken into full account before governments or military strategists carve out new roads or set new directions.

The road to food security and peace may well be winding and complicated, but shortcuts built by force can lead to hunger and more violence.

Nettie Wiebe is a farmer in the Delisle, Sask., region and a professor of Church and Society at St. Andrews College in Saskatoon.