OVERVIEW

The Commercial Horticulture and Agricultural Marketing Program (CHAMP) works with leading Afghan processing and export firms to enhance the supply chain, marketing, and export promotion of Afghan fruits and nuts. CHAMP supports traders through its trade offices located in New Delhi, India and Dubai, UAE to boost Afghan agricultural exports in these and other major regional markets. CHAMP is working to strengthen the capacity of local packaging manufacturers, improve the skills of exporters in business administration and finance, establish an Agricultural Export Knowledge Management Unit that will disseminate reliable data on agricultural exports, promote investment in cold storage and pack house facilities, expand quality standards certification, and support freight and logistics facilitation to promote agricultural trade. These efforts will stimulate the growth of Afghan exports to regional wholesale markets and supermarkets by up to 15,000 metric tons (MT) annually.

ACTIVITIES

• Improve pre- and post-harvest methods for fresh fruits to meet market requirements.
• Link farmers with traders, and traders with domestic and international markets.
• Facilitate the export of selected fresh and dry fruits and nuts to regional and international markets.
• Build the capacity of agribusinesses (exporters) to comply with international market requirements
• Support the trade offices established in Dubai and New Delhi to facilitate exports from Afghanistan and arrange business to business meeting with and between the traders and buyers
• Establish community-based Farmer Field Schools (informal coaching platforms for farmers in the field).
• Train farmers on improved agriculture techniques, including planting, fertilization, irrigation, and disease and pest control.
• Support traders to adopt global packing standards by introducing corrugated cartons and plastic containers to reduce damage to fruit during shipment.
• Assist Afghan exporters to participate in exhibitions such as the Dubai’s Gulfood Exhibition and the India International Trade Fair to open new markets for Afghan produce.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

• Facilitated exports of more than 52,000 metric tons of fresh and dried fruit and nuts worth an estimated $57 million since 2010 to international markets including Pakistan, Bahrain, Canada, India, the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
• Benefitted 38,400 Afghan households through activities ranging from establishing commercial orchards to exporting high quality produce.
• Created more than 7,840 full-time jobs through opportunities afforded by increased production, quality improvement and export facilitation.
• Increased 19,714 farmers’ incomes 4.5 fold by assisting them to switch from annual crops to perennial horticultural crops.
• Helped 19,500 farmers to plant more than 2.85 million fruit saplings, pomegranate and grape rooted cuttings, and converted 6,170 hectares previously used for cereal crops to fruit orchards and vineyards.
• Assisted 2,900 farmers to trellis 600-hectares of existing vineyards in Kabul, Parwan, Logar, Ghazni, Zabul, Helmand and Kapisa provinces, realizing yield increases of more than 100 percent and a significant increase in quality over traditional method of letting vines lay on the ground.