Captain Timothy Merrit

Agribusiness Development Teams in Afghanistan Captain Timothy Merrit

Agriculture accounts for 45 percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product and is the main source of income for the Afghan economy. Over 80 percent of the Afghan population is involved in farming, herding, or both. However, decades of war, drought, and security challenges have devastated the country's agricultural sector, and the current level of U. S. government civilian support has been unable to keep pace with the tremendous need for assistance in this region. Revitalizing Afghanistan's agricultural sector is critical to building the government's capacity and to stabilizing the country. In 2007 the Secretary of the Army, Director of the Army National Guard, Missouri Farm Bureau President, and the Adjutant General of the Missouri National Guard developed an idea to deploy Soldiers with agricultural expertise and organic security capabilities to Afghanistan. They realized the development of Afghanistan's agriculture and agricultural products distribution capabilities was vital to long-term economic development and that governmental civilians (United States, Afghanistan, and other countries) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) were not resourced for the massive amount of work necessary in these areas as well as for the security they required. Collectively, these leaders saw the farming expertise contained within the National Guard to be the solution-farming skills to grow the Afghan agribusiness economy and Soldier skills vital to operating in a counterinsurgency environment.