Sustainable Wheat & Maize Production in Afghanistan

Since 2012, Australian support has resulted in the release of 23 wheat varieties by Afghanistan’s National Varietal Release Committee (NVRC). These varieties deliver both improved yield and disease tolerance. A 2015/16 farmer survey confirmed that farmers were indeed sharing seed with an average of three relatives/neighbours – although with no indication of how much seed was shared. This uncertainty regarding the adoption of new varieties has been intended to resolve by a recent DNA assessments of seed collected in 2015/16 that shows the general prevalence of the new varieties across 600 surveyed farms