Congressman Ike Skelton
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Aug. 9, 2009) — In October 2007, the Missouri National Guard personnel, with agricultural and business development expertise, as well as other essential skills, formed the Afghanistan Agribusiness Development Team to develop agribusiness in Afghanistan. Agriculture accounts for 45 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product and employs over 70 percent of the Afghan population. However, decades of war and neglect have devastated the country’s agricultural sector. As a result, one of the great needs in the country is to develop its agriculture potential, and I am so proud of the efforts of the Missouri National Guard, who assumed this mission on agribusiness development and have become a model for our international effort to help rebuild Afghanistan’s economy. Through the years, Afghan farmers have found it profitable to grow poppies, which are then used to make heroin. The funding from this illicit drug trade has enabled the Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists. The Missouri National Guard’s agribusiness specialists, many of whom bring years of experience and advanced degrees in agricultural-related fields, are showing Afghan farmers how to develop an agricultural economy not based on poppy production. Harnessing and projecting these talents in Afghanistan not only improves life for the Afghan people, it undermines Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists and exposes their ideology of destruction.
Click here to read more on Pulaski County Daily News ...By U.S. Rep. Ike Skelton
