Labour force characteristics
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brain drain in the international migration patterns. The Government of Afghanistan could consider incorporating migration in developing strategies, thereby relieving the pressure on the internal labour market, and generating remittances and
human capital that may fuel the national economy. Facilitating the transfer of remittances is one possibility to stimulate labour migration and importing international currencies. Given the apparent high mobility in the Afghan population,
the population census should include a well-designed module to capture international and internal migration patterns, especially also in view of population projections.
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5. The agricultural sector
SUMMARY. Agricultural activities are the main livelihood strategies for the Afghan population, as 55 percent of households
are engaged in farming and 68 percent have any type of livestock. However, productivity in the agricultural sector is relatively low, as for instance relected by the 37 percent contribution of agriculture to the GDP in 2007.
Household access to land increased with 8 percentage points from the 47 percent reported in the NRVA 2005, which is especially due to an increase in access to irrigated land. Overall, 40 percent of households have access
to irrigated land, 17 percent have access to rain-fed land and 11 percent grow vegetables and fruits on garden plots. Although Afghan farmers grow a large variety of crops, wheat is by far the most important one: this is the
case for 77 percent of households farming on irrigated land in summer and for 94 percent farming on rain-fed land. An alarming result is that 10 percent of households that are engaged in agriculture are growing opium.
This national igure can almost exclusively be attributed to the production in six provinces, with Urozgan and Helmand having the highest proportion of households producing opium 82 and 67 percent, respectively.
In general, farmland size is small – 7 Jerib for irrigated land and 14 Jerib for rain-fed land – and productivity is hampered by water shortage due to poor irrigation systems and lack of rain water, lack of credit, little
mechanization, insuficient outreach of agricultural and veterinary extension services, and poor accessibility of markets and communities. However, with regard to the latter, the NRVA 20078 observed that more than
half of the households mention that road conditions have improved over the three years preceding the interview.
5.1 Introduction
Agriculture is by far the most important economic activity and livelihood component in Afghanistan. Over half of the households are involved in agriculture, as reflected by the percentage of households that have access to land through
either owning or managing agricultural land or garden plots 55 percent. The World Bank’s 2007 data profile for Afghanistan reports that agriculture contributes by 37 percent to the GDP.
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With a varied geography and topography, out of 652 thousand square kilometers of total land area of the country, only an estimated 12 percent is arable, three percent of the land is considered forest covered, 46 percent is under permanent
pasture and 39 percent is mountainous, not usable for agriculture CSO 2007.
This chapter deals with various aspects of Afghanistan’s agricultural sector. The next section 5.2 is devoted to the access to land, irrigated and rain-fed land, as well as garden plots. Section 5.3 describes agricultural output from
farming and livestock raising. Sections 5.4 and 5.5 discuss, respectively, different inputs into the agricultural sector and agricultural constraints.
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The agricultural sector
