Afghanistan’s olive groves offer farmers relief from climate crisis

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JALALABAD: Olives tumble onto a tarpaulin in eastern Afghanistan, an unusual, drought-resistant harvest offering hope to farmers struggling as climate change ...

JALALABAD: Olives tumble onto a tarpaulin in eastern Afghanistan, an unusual, drought-resistant harvest offering hope to farmers struggling as climate change worsens water shortages.

Drought and water scarcity affect more than half of Afghanistan’s population, according to the United Nations, pushing some farmers to look for alternatives to maize, rice and wheat. Abdullah Orzala’s olive grove, first planted 15 years ago on his family’s land in Saidan Arabi village in eastern Nangarhar province, is one such success story.

“I said to myself, ‘let’s try something,’ because the important thing for me in agriculture is that we have to think about water resources and how to adapt to climate change,” he said. “And the olive tree is one of the best drought-resistant trees in the world.” The trees also improve soil health and reduce erosion, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which is useful in Nangarhar, where farmers face crop failures and competition over shrinking water supplies.

Olives are not a traditional part of Afghan cuisine, and the country’s yields are tiny compared with major European producers. But they can be a valuable cash crop. Each November, the 500 villagers of Saidan Arabi hand-pick olives from their organic orchards and cold-press them at an experimental mill, with the oil selling for up to $17 per kilogram in organic shops in Kabul. Orzala, a plant specialist who fled Afghanistan as a child, studied in the United States and returned in 2003, has planted thousands more trees in another village, creating 16 permanent jobs.

Along the road from Jalalabad to the Pakistani border, olive groves dating from the 1960s give the landscape an almost Mediterranean look. A Soviet-built mill began producing oil in 1985, but successive wars later destroyed nearly half of Afghanistan’s olive-growing area.

“We hope one day to gain access to the international market,” Hashimi said.

Still, olive cultivation is spreading in eastern and southern…

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