WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Kit Bond today joined Lieutenant General Clyde A. Vaughn, the Director of the Army National Guard, to tout the success of the Missouri National Guard’s Agribusiness Development Team (ADT) in improving agriculture and supplanting the narcotics trade in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province.  Just last week, Bond visited the Missouri ADT in Afghanistan to see first-hand their accomplishments.

 

            “One of the best remedies to terrorism is a paycheck and by helping Afghans farmers develop skills to support their families, Missourians are contributing to not only rural development, but a stable Afghanistan,” said Bond.  “These Guardsmen and women are literally sewing the seeds of peace in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province.”

 

            Like Missouri almost 75 percent of the population of Afghanistan is linked to the agricultural sector.  Recognizing the importance of agriculture to the country, Bond has long-stressed that improvements in this sector are key to the stability and prosperity of Afghanistan.  Sustainable agriculture development projects in Afghanistan will not only improve the lives of the Afghans, but will help create the conditions for enduring security and stability, Bond emphasized.

 

            On a visit to Afghanistan in 2006, Bond met with General Eikenberry and former Secretary of Agriculture Jim Mosely about adopting an extension-like system modeled after the one here in the United States to develop Afghan Agriculture.  Bond followed up these planning meetings by securing money for the project through the Senate Appropriations Committee.  Unfortunately, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), who received the federal dollars Bond appropriated, lacked the capacity to get the project off the ground.  Not willing to give up on this critical project, Bond turned to the National Guard, particularly General Vaughn, whose citizen soldiers implemented the now-successful project.

 

            Born out of a close cooperation with the Missouri Farm Bureau, University of Missouri-Columbia, Lincoln University, and the Missouri National Guard, the ADT is made up of personnel with a wide range of civilian and agricultural backgrounds in agronomy, veterinary medicine, hydrology, marketing, soil science and engineering. These agriculture experts are now teaching Afghans the skills they need grow and harvest alternative crops, like wheat.  These teams' strategies focus on building relationships and trust at provincial and district levels, influencing hearts and minds and denying the negative influences of radical Taliban. 

 

            Bond praised the Missouri National Guard ADT for their success.  Not only are Afghan farmers improving their own lives and their land through sustainable agriculture the narcotics trade is also being supplanted.  Poppy production in Nangarhar province has virtually been eliminated according the United Nations and much of this is due to the successful engagement strategies employed by the ADT and the U.S. led Regional Command East.  Because of the Missouri Guard’s success, subsequent ADT teams from Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Indiana are all either scheduled to deploy or have already deployed.  Following Missouri's lead, each of these ADT teams will bring their unique skill-sets and backgrounds to the effort.

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