USAID ( United States Agency for International Development) is an organization paid for with your tax dollars. Their mission is to help farmers stop growing poppies and start growing food crops, which is an expensive proposition , which is well worth it if it’s done right. The problem is that it’s not being done right. USAID is bragging how they helped an Afghan farmer by the name of Rahmatullah start a pomegranate orchard. I have just two questions for USAID. One, Id like to know where the pomegranate bushes are and the second question is what are all those poppies doing in his pomegranate orchard?
USAID has attempted to curb opium production by giving farmers grants to grow other crops like pomegranates.
Despite the efforts of USAID and other agencies that spent $8.5 billion to eradicate narcotics, Afghanistan broke records for opium production in 2016.
Poppy production increased by 43 percent in 2016, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s (SIGAR) latest Quarterly Report to Congress published Monday.
“Deteriorating security conditions, a lack of political will and the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics’ ineffective management all contributed to the paltry eradication results in 2016,” the report stated. Poppy “cultivation remained near historically high levels compared with the past several decades.
@USAIDAfghan What a pomegranate orchard looks like :
What you’re showing here… Does appear to be Opium pic.twitter.com/UagANVVUcE
— David Middleton NZ (@ohthatdude) May 1, 2017
Rahmatullah, a farmer from #Kandahar, started his own pomegranate orchard with a little help from #USAID. pic.twitter.com/rdm1QISTci
— USAID Afghanistan (@USAIDAfghan) May 1, 2017
USAID later clarified that Rahmatullah had plowed under his poppy crop to plant pomegranates but did not post any pictures of the pomegranates. Why do you suppose they didn’t? Someone trustworthy from our government needs to check on all the farmers we shelled out big bucks to. Then we can all hope the picture was posted in error.