Afghanistan officials visited a family home yard gardening system that was owned by Woman Farmer Group “Puspasari” in Bogor West Java, to learn about various medicinal plants [herbs], vegetables, fruits and annual crops in Indonesia

FAO Indonesia together with the Indonesia Agency for Food Security organized a Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) Policy Analysis Training cum Study Tour for officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) of Afghanistan to improve the FSN management capacity in the country. 

Jakarta, November 11. From 7-11 November, ten high level officials from Afghanistan attended a five-day course in food security and nutrition policy analysis and learned various good practices on food security and nutrition interventions in  Jakarta and Bogor, West Java Indonesia. 

The course offered a range of topics, including on Indonesia’s program on food availability and vulnerability, early warning system for food security and nutrition, method and assessment of food balance sheets, food consumption and diversification, food safety, food distribution policy, and organic food. Afghanistan just completed its Food Security and Nutrition policy and tried to establish a special unit dealing with food security and nutrition challenges in the country. 

“Indonesia has a very good institutional structures, including the Food Security Agency under the Ministry of Agriculture and also a Food Security Council. These are two institutions that we are trying to develop. We currently do not have an active food security department under the Ministry” said Muhammad Shakir Majeedi , Director General of Programme Coordination and Planning, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock.  

Around 33% of the population in Afghanistan are food-insecure and 14% are borderline food insecure, thus are vulnerable to food insecurity. The manifestation of the severe state of food insecurity is widespread malnutrition, which is further compounded by a poor health, sanitation and the lack of a caring environment. 

Afghanistan officials visited a family home yard gardening system that was owned by Woman Farmer Group  “Puspasari” in Bogor West Java, to learn about various medicinal plants [herbs], vegetables, fruits and annual crops in Indonesia. 

Over half of Afghan children under five years of age suffer from record rates of chronic malnutrition and it has been found that under-nutrition depresses the gross domestic product (GDP) of Afghanistan by 2 to 3% per year. 

Afghanistan also suffers scarcity in the availability of food, especially for wheat as their main staple food.  Annually, the country experiences around 1.15 million MT deficit in wheat, which has become one of the key manifestations of national food insecurity in Afghanistan. 

Indonesia Warmly Welcomes Afghanistan Delegation 

Indonesia warmly welcomes the Afghanistan delegation, and hopes the study tour will be beneficial for both countries in the future. 

“It is a good experience for us to share our experience with Afghanistan. We do hope this study tour provide knowledge and lesson learnt for Afghanistan officials to develop and implement the policies and programs of food security in their country in order to achieve the SDG’s target in 2030. We realize there are several differences in terms of culture and geographical situations between Indonesia and Afghanistan, but we believe that mechanism of coordination, types of activities and methodologies of community empowerment that exist in Indonesia, whichever is appropriate, could be replicated in Afghanistan.” said Dr. Gardjita Budi, Director General of Agency for Food Security, Ministry of Agriculture, Republic of Indonesia. 

The week-long study tour in Indonesia is expected to be the beginning of a long-term and strong collaboration between Afghanistan and Indonesia. 

“The most important is how we can engage in further discussion on creating long term collaboration with our colleagues in Indonesia. Be it for sharing experiences, or through the visit of Indonesian experts to Afghanistan. Indonesia’s knowledge and experiences are worth sharing to the other part of the world”, said Majeedi. 

Indonesia and Afghanistan both engage in South-South Cooperation, while FAO plays a facilitation role, having worked with over 20 provider countries and 80 hosts, as well as 15 triangular partners over the years.  FAO provides a space for countries to network, while also supporting the matching of different countries in offering technical guidance, advice on appropriate modalities of exchange and secures each partners’ commitment to the cooperation. 

“FAO is always seeking ways to create a strong collaboration among countries, where each country is able to put forward their institutions of excellence in food and agriculture.  Indonesia has a rich experience in tackling food insecurity and we hope that Indonesia’s innovative solutions, as well as its institutional structures can be an example to others,” said Mark Smulders, FAO Representative in Indonesia and Timor Leste.