Almond crops increases in Samangan

SAMANGAN (Agencies): Officials of Samangan Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Department say that almond croprs have increased significantly compared to last year.
Najibullah Joya, Director Samangan Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Department, said: During the last few days, the officials of this department have visited various parts of the province, where the most almond orchards are located, on them assess they a magnificent more than 4620 tons of almond above their estimation.
He said the almond crops was 2887 tons in the last year in Samangan.
In the city of Aybak, almonds are bought by the shopkeepers and merchants of dried fruit from gardeners for 1,000 to 4,500 afghanis, which is equal to 7 kgs, and this department calculated the price of 7 kilograms of almonds at 2,100 afghanis, Joya said.
According to their calculation, gardeners will earn more than 1.1 billion Afghanis from the sale of almond crops in that province. In the last year gardeners harvested 2,887 tons of almonds and earned an estimated 866 million afghanis from their sale, according to Agriculture department of the province.
Meanwhile, the dried fruit traders expressed their happiness about the increase in almond production. Haji Naqibullah, a dried fruit trader in Aybak city, who was weighing almonds, said: This year, Samangan almonds have a high yield he adding that he has bought more than 50 tons of almonds from gardeners for two months and sold them to the market.
He said, the price of almonds this year in the markets was not good compared to last year and because of this they could not get good provisions.
The traders also sell almonds in Kabul and Mazar Sharif to domestic and foreign traders, 40% of Samangan almonds are consumed in domestic markets and 60% are exported by companies and traders to India, Pakistan, United Arab Emirates.
He clarified that currently, one kilogram of almonds in Aybak city is sold from 150 afghani to 650 afghani, which are known as Sattarbai, Khairaldini, Shakurbai, Qombari, Maruji, Todabi, Kagazi, Sankeg.
The best of which is Sattar Bayi, this almond is known as Shah Khoori among the people.
Farmer, Haji Zia, a 71-year-old gardener from Sargad Aybak village, said: he has a parallel 20-acre almond orchard with more than 1,000 almond trees, from which he harvested 300 tons of almonds.
According to the officials of the Department of Agriculture in Samangan, more than 4880 hectares of almond orchards are available in the center of Hazrat Sultan Wakhram Sarbagh district of the province, and the majority of its residents provide their livelihood from those products.
Samangan’s water, soil, and air are favorable for the development of almond trees, and horticulturists of the province have special skills in growing their seedlings, said local officials of the province.
The culture of horticulture in Samangan province has now turned into a healthy competition among the farmers, Nowadays, in addition to irrigated lands, the residents of the province are planting almond seedlings.
Knowledge on growing almond planets has shown that almond trees have a good resistance to dehydration and can grow and develop from 20 to 35 degrees Celsius and produce more.