Roots of Renewal

GPFA works to help rural Afghans revive and rehabilitate their fruit and nut orchards, vineyards, croplands and forests, thereby generating food, jobs, income, and environmental and health benefits. Our first project is in the Guldara District of the Kohdaman Valley, 45 kilometers north of Kabul. As we learn from this project, we will replicate it in other areas.

We support three distinct types of plantings. Depending on local conditions and needs, projects may combine two or three of them:

• Short-term: Fruits and vegetables to harvest within a year.


• Intermediate-term: Saplings and root stock to restore orchards and vineyards within three to five years.


• Long-term: Trees for reforestation to replenish topsoil, diminish erosion and provide economic benefits.

Toward a Green and Prosperous Afghanistan: Global Partnership for Afghanistan
Income and Food Security by Revitalizing Farm Businesses

Seeding New Orchards, Vineyards, Tree Nurseries and Woodlots To Restore Livelihoods

The Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA) is a people-to-people, capacity-building not for profit organization formed in November 2001. GPFA works to help rural Afghan families revive and rehabilitate their fruit and nut orchards, vineyards, croplands and forests, thereby generating food, jobs, income, and environmental and health benefits.

The Problem: Finding a Helping Hand, Not a Handout
Two decades of war have brought almost unparalleled destruction to Afghanistan. Its land has been devastated, its trees destroyed and so many of its families forced to flee from their homes and land. Despite world attention on the plight of Afghanistan, and broad international agreement on the urgent need to rebuild and stabilize the country, so many needs both visible and invisible remain unaddressed. This list includes employment, income generation, natural resource development, public health, alternative livelihoods to poppy cultivation and building local capacity.

After more than a quarter-century of war, Afghanistan ranks as one of the world's poorest country, according to the World Bank. Once a net agricultural exporter known throughout Central Asia for its harvests of extraordinary, succulent fruits, Afghanistan has lost an estimated 60% to 80% of the country's orchards and vineyards to war and drought.

The land can no longer support the bountiful agriculture that once sustained 80% of Afghans, accounted for 50% of the country's GDP, and made Afghanistan self-sufficient in food production. Instead, a cycle of drought, desertification and poverty increasingly plagues the country. Proud men and women-once owners of flourishing orchards and vineyards-desperately need training, quality planting stock and capital to invest in fertilizers, irrigation and tools.

The Solution: An Initial 70,000 Trees Planted to Restore Land Productivity
To reduce poverty and rebuild the economy and environment, Afghanistan's previous wealth of farm lands and tree resources must be restored. Founded in New York City by Afghan Americans and Americans, the Global Partnership for Afghanistan (GPFA) is working with the international and Afghan communities to rapidly restore the country's long tradition of cultivating trees on the farm to deliver food and income.

In the Guldara District in the Shamali Valley, GPFA and local community leaders launched demonstration projects in March 2004 aimed at increasing food security and generating income. Now encompassing some 70,000 trees, these projects are designed to integrate local skills, resources and conditions and achieve rapid financial sustainability for broad replication across Afghanistan.

The Guldara District suffered greatly from war and the resulting destruction. When the fighting came to this cluster of villages, residents were forced to flee as the Taliban forces burned virtually everything, leaving only the damaged mud-brick shells of their homes. They returned in 2002, largely from Pakistan, to find the district's scorched earth, homes, schools and orchards filled with mines. Each day, deminers add large white check marks to village buildings, indicating that new territories are free of dangerous land mines and safe for activity. With help from organizations like GPFA, families are rebuilding their homes and their lives.

Renewing Orchards and Vineyards: GPFA Helps Rebuild Family Businesses
Working with the Guldara District Shura, the local council of elders, GPFA has provided two-year-old saplings to support the redevelopment of nearly 175 fruit orchard businesses in the District. (The first apple produced from saplings planted in Spring 2004 shown on right.) The orchards belong to refugee and internally displaced families who were forced by the Taliban to leave their villages. Working side-by-side with farmers, GPFA supplied some 13,200 tree saplings, inputs and tools. This is funded by a US $200 loan program that that enables each grower to secure 50 fruit trees and fertilizers to help them thrive. Farmers will continue to be supported through extension services and field visits from GPFA's trained agronomists.

Orchards are typically intercropped with annual vegetables and herbs in the first two years, providing an immediate source of food and income. The project is expected to produce from fruit sales a net family income of $1,000 - $2,000 annually after 3-5 years, with higher rates expected as the orchards fully mature. Farmers are repaying GPFA's tree loan through modest payments over four years. GPFA is also working to revitalize grape production in Guldara from existing vineyards.

Helping Women
Expanding upon its orchard program success, GPFA has launched a new demonstration project to help 25 widows replant their land and develop sustainable orchard businesses to support their families. GPFA hired a female agriculturalist, trained at Kabul University, to work hand-in-hand with the women and train them in horticulture and business skills to ensure success.

Family Fruit Tree Nurseries To Generate Income
In order for the people of Afghanistan to harvest the many benefits of trees, the supply of native trees must be greatly increased. High quality nursery stock is in short supply in Afghanistan. GPFA began its first nursery in Spring 2004 with 7,500 grafted saplings, planted in Guldara, in order to secure supplies of saplings for future expansion. Last fall, four family farmers planted seeds for new privately-owned nurseries. These nurseries are designed to train farmers in tree care, including highly specialized grafting, and to increase local supplies of quality planting stock. Each of these orchards are expected to yield 4,000 trees within the next two years-for a total of up to 16,000 trees. Through the sale of these saplings, farmers are expected to earn enough to support their families.

Multiplying Valuable Poplars via Nurseries and Commercial Woodlots
Following the successful results of last year's demonstration planting, GPFA has dramatically expanded its poplar plantations program with the planting of 40,000 trees. Poplars are important to Afghanistan's reforestation and as a source of poles for construction, fuel wood, and cuttings for future nursery growth. Last year GPFA established a small, private hybrid poplar demonstration including 15 varieties of fast-growing poplar cuttings imported from the U.S. along with a control group of local cuttings. The imported trees grew three times as high as local varieties.

The top four hybrid varieties which performed best in these trials were planted in nurseries, woodlots and demonstration parcels in 2005. The majority of these cuttings are being cultivated in poplar nurseries (or "stoolbeds") which will exponentially grow the supply of cuttings in future years. We anticipate that these "mother plants" will produce as many as 700,000 trees over the next two years. A small portion of the cuttings (5%) will be used to begin demonstration woodlots for timber production. These trees are typically grown on a seven-year rotation with new cuttings planted each year to replace mature trees harvested.

To fuel small farmer-owned businesses-vital as the long-term producers of Afghanistan's future planting material-GPFA is assisting eight farmers in establishing their own private nurseries. Working with these farmers for a 2 year period, GPFA will provide training in poplar cultivation and business development. These small lots may yield as much as $500 - $1,000 annually from the sale of cuttings, in addition to significant profit from the sale of mature poles after seven years. Our agreement provides the poplar cuttings, inputs, and ongoing training. The farmers will return this investment by sharing a portion of their cutting harvest with GPFA to provide planting material for broad replication in other areas of Afghanistan.

Download our project summary as a PDF (229KB).