Herat gardeners convert most of grape produce into raisins

HERAT CTIY (Pajhwok): Gardeners in western Herat provinces say they convert most of their grape produce into raisins due to lack of standard cold storages, domestic market and export facilities.

Ahmad Zia Yousufi, a gardener, told Pajhwok Afghan News they were forced to process grapes into raisins due to lack of standard cold storage facilities and suitable market.

According to him, most gardeners supply only 10 percent of the fresh fruit to the market and 90 percent are turned into raisins due to lack of market. Jalil Ahmad Habibi, another grower, said their products were not exported to foreign countries due to lack of air-corridors.

He urged the government to facilitate the export of their harvest and also establish standard cold storages. Bashir Ahmad Bahador, director of Herat Chamber of Agriculture and Livestock, hoped that next year the Islamic Emirate would create air-corridors and issue visas for traders so they could export their products abroad. He added this year fruit merchants were not given visas to export their products abroad.

Bashir Ahmad Ahmadi, director of the Agricultural Department, said there were currently more than 1,400 raisin processing centers in the province and grapes remaining from export could be converted into raisins and then exported. Herat is a major grape producing province and hundreds of thousand tons of grapes are produced here every year.

Ali Ahmad Mohammadi, a professor at Herat Province University, believes agriculture growth needs government’s support and this in turn has a direct impact on the economy of the people and farmers in Afghanistan.

According to Mohammadi, because more than 90 percent of Herat’s land is arable, it is necessary for the local administration to work in agreement with the central government on a regular plan in the framework of a long-term plan in the market sector for selling agricultural products, establishing air corridors, creating cold storage facilities and providing the environment for labor export.