What are cash crops?

Cash crops such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, or field crops are plants which are primarily grown in order to generate an income. Cash crops vary by country based on climate, soil, and what's in demand at the market. In Afghanistan, where 80% of livelihoods depend on agriculture, cultivating profitable crops is crucial for survival, bolstering local food security and enriching diets whilst providing vital income streams for rural households.

Farms that grow these valuable crops tend to create more economic opportunities for women, ensuring their inclusion in essential agricultural tasks and raising their status in local communities.

There are two main types of cash crops in Afghanistan: seasonal crops with fluctuating prices and harvest conditions, and perennial crops, which are in constant demand throughout the year.

What are some of the crops grown in Afghanistan?

In Afghanistan, seasonal cash crops can include potatoes, beans, peanuts, carrots, turnips, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, okra, onions, radishes, and watermelons. 

Field crops that can be sold for profit in Afghanistan include flax, sesame, soybean, liquorice, cotton, mung beans, and sunflower.

Perennial fruits and nuts include apple, apricot, pear, grape, pomegranate, peach, walnut, plum, pistachio, and almond, with additional perennial crops including ferula, saffron, and poplar.

What challenges are Afghan farmers currently navigating?

In recent years, several key climate and contextual challenges have made agricultural yields decrease Afghanistan, resulting in acute food insecurity across the country. For example:

• Severe droughts exacerbated by land degradation have caused crops to fail and existing plants to wither;
• Extreme flash floods have washed away acres of agricultural fields;
• Plant diseases and pests - which have become more common in Afghanistan due to hotter and wetter conditions - have posed challenges across all crops;
• Restricted access to seeds and fertiliser and disputes over scarce resources.

Unable to cultivate sufficient yields, farmers have been struggling to get back on their feet, build resilience or fully eliminate food insecurity rates across the country. 

How is Afghanaid supporting farmers with cash crops?

We recognise the importance of ensuring farmers can grow more in a changing climate, and support them with alternative and innovative ways to do so. By supporting farmers with access to improved seeds, which grow a more drought-tolerant crop, we can circumvent the immediate challenges faced when local seeds are grown in increasingly hostile conditions. By prioritising the growth of hardy crops such as ferula, which need less water to flourish, we can also assist farmers to grow plants that suit Afghanistan’s changing climate, and by training farmers in updated agricultural techniques, we can support them with skills for the future that support them to bolster yields in the present.

Cash crop interventions must also happen concurrently with other climate adaptation programming, such as inputs to mitigate flood risks in farming communities, in order to ensure efficacy and sustainability of the assistance provided. By effectively irrigating arable land, landscaping hillsides to slow water runoff, and ensuring farmers have access to robust water management systems, we can support them to navigate conditions of drought and decrease instances of flash flooding. Mitigating these disasters then halts the cycle of instability for crop rotations and disrupted harvests, ensuring farmers can more steady rely upon the crops they grow. 

People who grow more than two different crops are faring better, and are able to make more money. Basically, they are able to grow wheat in Autumn, which sorts their food needs and provides straw for their animals, and in Spring then if they grow a cash crop - like potatoes, onions, watermelon, cotton, or ferula - they’re enriching their diet but are also able to sell any surplus at the local bazaar. So we’re really encouraging this, and distributing more diverse crops to set families up better for the future.

Guru Naik, Afghanaid's Deputy Director for Climate Action

Through Afghanaid’s largest climate adaptation programme, we've significantly improved the ability of the communities we work with to grow more and earn an income. In the past three years, over 12,800 men in eight communities have received tools and seeds for sustainable crop cultivation and livestock raising.

The crops grown by farmers hold considerable economic value and differ across provinces. For example, in the northeastern province of Takhar, farmers grow rice, sesame, flax, and chickpeas - with sesame being the most valuable crop. Meanwhile, neighbouring Samangan province instead specialises in cash crops such as melons, watermelons, and cotton, and is especially famous for it's almonds, which are in high demand. Ensuring crop diversity within and across provinces is crucial to avoid market saturation, whilst also ensuring nutritional variety within communities. 

Gaining access to land and resources in order to earn an income is often much more challenging for rural women, who whilst playing a vital role in farming, are seldom able to own their own land on which to grow crops. Under this climate programme, we're supporting over 1,200 rural women to earn an income through cash crops by providing the necessary training, seeds and tools to create vegetable gardens, enabling them to cultivate more drought-tolerant vegetables in the gardens of their homes.

As well as this, 120 women will receive tools for home-based nurseries under this initiative, enabling them to play a pivotal role in the reforestation of Afghan landscapes, whilst also growing a successful small business by selling the produce of the trees they grow, as well as by selling seedlings and saplings for others to grow. 

Why do cash crops build climate resilience?

Cash crops and farming diversification also act as a buffer against economic shocks caused by climate events. When farmers grow a wider variety of crops, they are less vulnerable to the failure of a single crop due to drought or other adverse conditions. This strengthens food security and reduces reliance on a single food source, ensuring more stable food availability even in times of climate stress.

Additionally, by prioritising the growth of more drought-tolerant crops, the use of new seed varieties and employing drought-resistant agriculture techniques such as water harvesting, we can ensure farmers are better prepared to handle the challenges posed by climate change.

Similarly, by specifically equipping rural women with drought-tolerant vegetable seeds and training, as well as inputs such as polytunnels to protect crops from extreme weather, female farmers are able to ensure their crops prosper despite climatic changes and also strengthen their own positions in society. Their plots then also become small carbon sinks across rural Afghanistan, lessening the impacts of climate change in their areas by purifying air and reducing land degradation.

Ensuring rural communities implement these overlapping solutions is crucial for tackling rural poverty and malnutrition, as well as building sustainable, resilient livelihoods for the future.

How can you help?

When you enable beside farmers like Abdul Satar and Fawzia to grow cash crops, you support them in their mission to build a brighter and greener Afghanistan, where communities can feed their families and stay safe from climate disasters. Invest in their resilience today by supporting our climate adaptation programming: