Afghanistan hit by worst drought in 30 years • FRANCE 24 English

Afghanistan hit by worst drought in 30 years • FRANCE 24 English

[Music] Hat is among the provinces hit hardest by a prolonged drought in Afghanistan this year. The province received just 90 mm of rain, two times less than the rainfall recorded in some other parts of the country. Oh my god, look, everything is dry. We used to grow very nice watermelons here, but after the drought, we could not continue. Kul Muhammad is desperate. Despite his best efforts, he struggles to grow anything in his field. It’s been 10 years of drought now and nothing is cultivated. Look at the land. We have no water at all. In recent years, villages across the province have been abandoned. Kul Muhammad is managing as best as he can. I have three hectares of land and I can only cultivate a third of it. We do not even have enough water to irrigate this. Most of the land is completely dried out. It’s because of the lack of water. If I could irrigate all this land, I could feed 10 members of my family. With only one hector, what can I do? 100 kilometers north of Kabul, the land has dried up. Naja a widow relies on small field by her house to feed her children but little grows anymore. Perhwan prevents his entire need of water as rain has drastically decreased over the last 5 years. Before the drought, we could produce just enough to live. But for 2 years, everything has been lost. We had to cut the branches off the fruit trees to save them because they were dying. If we had rain, it would nourish fields. But if there’s no rain, then the drought will continue. Bwan is famous for its grapes and farmers are deeply worried as the drought intensifies. For 5 years, the rains have been irregular and scarse, devastating crops for growers like Baralai. He continues to tend his vines which are slowly withering away. Before these were magnificent vineyards, but now everything has dried up and infested. It’s useless. I can’t sell them because of the drought. Even the irrigation canals have dried up. It is impossible to dig wells as the ground level has dropped immensely and the cost would be too high for this small farmer. There used to be a stream here, but now it’s dry. So now the only source of water is rain water. The water that flows here is just dirty water. Before when prices and the harvests were good, I earned 30,000 rupees a month compared to 5,000 to 10,000 rupees. Now we have water during the winter but it disappears during the summer. This makes grape cultivation difficult and the situation is becoming dire. Farmers from here are very worried. The drought has forced tens of thousands of families across the country to abandon their land and seek opportunities elsewhere. This is the case for Abdul Basir Khalili who has lost all hope that his land will yield a profit. Last year I planted wheat here but it burned. This year I want to plant vegetables but I don’t know if we will have enough water or not. Because of the drought there is no work here. So I was forced to go to Kabul to look for work. Abdul travels an hour from his village to the capital every day. Even here the job market is entire straits. Approximately 85% of Afghans live on less than a dollar a day. This is what I do. I help people with my cart, but I can’t see myself continuing this work. I feel like I don’t belong here. I could happily work in my field, but because of the drought, I’m forced to come here to feed my children. Drought is intensifying each year in Afghanistan, deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis. More than 12 million people in the country are currently suffering from acute food insecurity.

Afghanistan is enduring its worst drought in 30 years, having recorded less than half of its usual rainfall this past winter. As the sixth most vulnerable country to climate change globally, Afghanistan’s drought poses a direct threat to farming and food security. More than 80 percent of Afghans depend on agriculture for their livelihood. FRANCE 24’s Oriane Zerah and Shahzaib Wahlah report.
#Afghanistan #drought #climatechange

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