KHYBER: With timely assistance and provision of quality alternate seeds, fertiliser and related facilities to farmers by the agriculture department in Tirah valley and other parts of Khyber tribal district, poppy cultivation has registered a decline in the region during the last couple of years, officials said.

Official figures obtained by Dawn showed that the agriculture department, with the assistance of donor agencies, had so far succeeded in rehabilitating 300 acres of barren land in different parts of the district, especially in Tirah and Upper Bara, and distributed 0.3 million potato seeds among the local farmers along with free provision of good quality wheat and sunflower seeds and hundreds of fertiliser bags.

Tirah valley with most parts of upper and lower Bara areas is traditionally known for poppy cultivation. Poppy is considered the most prized crop with the local environment suiting its cultivation the most.

Khyber district director agriculture Ziaul Islam Dawar told Dawn that he, along with his dedicated team members, made several useful interventions in Tirah valley and other parts of the district that were traditionally infamous for poppy cultivation and successfully tried to stop farmers from cultivating the banned crop.

Agriculture dept has rehabilitated land, provided seed, fertiliser to farmers

He said the department’s efforts were showing fruitful results as the local farmers were gradually adapting to cultivation of alternate crops while slowly drifting away from poppy cultivation that had earned them a bad reputation and caused them troubles in the past due to successive anti-poppy campaigns by the relevant government departments.

“We provided 1,200 bags of fine quality wheat seed along with same quantity of fertilisers to farmers in Tirah and parts of lower Bara after their barren lands were rehabilitated and damaged water channels repaired,” he said.

The official added that recently, free maize seed was also provided to farmers after their wheat harvesting in order to keep them engaged in productive agricultural activities.

Qazi Farman is among the farmers, who have benefited from the official assistance and acknowledged that he has alternated poppy crop with wheat and maize crops on his farmlands in Ghaibikhel locality in Sipah area in upper Bara.

He told Dawn that he cultivated poppy and cannabis on his farmlands for many years before switching over to other profitable crops with the assistance and persuasion by the local agriculture department.

The grower said over 1,200 kanals of land was currently under the maize crop, while local farmers were interested in cultivating rice on it as the soil and environment was also conducive for rice cultivation along with different types of vegetables and fruits.

DDA Ziaul Islam said his department had so far provided residents in Tirah with 20,000 walnut trees along with free distribution of 10,000 saplings of plum, apricot and apple to encourage orchards, which could fetch handsome monetary benefits for local farmers.

He said the best quality onions were also cultivated over at least 280 acres of agricultural land in Jamrud, Landi Kotal and Bara, while sunflower was cultivated over 500 acres of land mostly in Jamrud and Bara.

Irshad Ali Malagori, a young farmer from Malagori, told Dawn that growers were provided with free sunflower seeds along with the frequent monitoring of their crop and fields by employees of the agriculture department that helped them harvest a bumper crop, almost double the previous years.

He said most farmers had extracted oil from their sunflower crop and also sold it in the market that augmented their profit in comparison to last year when they cultivated substandard seeds and that too for a price.

However, the DDA regretted that paucity of funds was hampering their plans to revitalise agriculture on a fast track, while he was in constant contact with donor agencies for provision of the much-needed funds.

“Despite these financial constraints, we have also cultivated new olive plants of good quality over an area of 310 acres, while our experts have completed the grafting of 35,000 wild olive trees in Tirahm Thora Vella and Mastak localities,” he said.

The official said an olive oil extraction machine would soon be installed in Bara to benefit the local farmers.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2023