Ag Fair

It is with great pleasure that I can talk about the wonderful Ag Fair held in Kabul over the New Year holiday. I remember the first Ag Fair a few years ago (as I recall it was the USAID/ASAP project that was behind it?), and it is great to see how their early efforts have developed into the quite magnificent event I attended the other day.

Welcome to the Kabul Ag Fair!

The crowd control at the main gate was a superbly Afghan experience; lots of completely ineffective security, a bloke trying to stop anyone getting in, another chap on the back of a pick up truck pointing a machine gun at the crowds while his colleague threatened to hit children with a stick... The VIP visitors never get to see such things, which is a shame. It could give them a slightly more realistic view of how the authorities can treat regular citizens even in such simple situations...

Finally I managed to get through the surging crowds and within a few metres of the gate, when I was identified from on high as "hariji" and somehow plucked from the crowd and propelled through the gate! In the end it was a bit like being a champagne cork forced from the bottle as I was half pulled, and seriously shoved through the Ag Fair gate with quite surprising momentum...

Agricultural machinery attracted a lot of interest

Once I had regained my balance (and attempted to recover my dignity) inside, I started to meander around the various stands. In the early days, the exhibition used to be dominated by sometimes strange handicrafts NGOs. This year, it was a much more convincing selection of genuine agricultural firms, selling real products that you could imagine farmers would be interested in buying.

What was very pleasing from an ABIF point of view was that we had already made contact with pretty much all of the commercial exhibitors (several were first round applicants and one was on the final shortlist). It would seem that one way or another we have reached most of the higher profile companies in the sector. Of course, we have to do more to reach others in future rounds, but as a start, it is good to have the impression that we haven't missed any of the obvious sector players.

Apart from that, it was just great to see some really impressive displays of produce from improved inputs and improved cultivation practices. The progress that has been made through various co-operatives and associations in this respect is remarkable.

But the question remains, how to transform the rural economy by spreading this new access to inputs and increased knowledge? This is where I am convinced that ABIF has a role to play through the private sector. We are not just about changing the way that farmers work, but also by encouraging investment in relevant value chains, we are helping to create new incentive structures that will make it worth the effort for farmers to adopt new practices. It might just be worth investing in better seeds if there is somebody to buy your crop (sounds so simple, but so often missing in the interventions I have seen in the past).

Waiting for the entertainment to start

And finally, on one of the first, warm and genuinely spring like days of the year, it was fun simply to wander around the fair, talk with some of the exhibitors, watch people, see families out together and kids playing, and all of those normal things that go on in life! By the time I managed to get inside the fair ground all of the official speeches etc were long over (not sure that I missed much there) and the musicians had taken to the stage. The crowd sat and waited patiently under the tent and were finally rewarded with some local entertainment... the cheer was enormous!

Can't wait for next year...