Daryl Brehm hadn’t planned to study and improve Afghanistan’s agriculture.
But in 2013, when his wife found a job in the country, Brehm left his job at the U.S. Embassy in Paris to explore and cultivate the lands of Afghanistan — a diverse land of mountains, desert and high winds, he said.
The former deputy director of foreign agricultural service for the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) said his goal during the yearlong stint in the Middle East was to set a foundation for long-term agricultural change.
“We tried to work to improve agriculture in a way that would get the general Afghan population to believe that they had a government that worked, that was helping them, or at least they had some friends who could bring some help to them,” he said.
Brehm’s lecture, titled “Sustainable Agriculture in Afghanistan,” described what Brehm saw as the major challenges to making the country truly sustainable, and possible solutions to those problems.
The lecture was part of a semester-long series known as the Malcolm Renfrew Interdisciplinary Colloquium. Each Tuesday from 12:30-1:30 p.m., a distinguished scholar from any variety of disciplines gives a lecture on their area of study in the Whitewater Room of the Idaho Commons.
Brehm started by giving a brief geography and history lesson. He said Afghanistan has been at war in one capacity or another since 1979, when the Soviet Army first invaded. Now, ethnic tensions make consistent, sustainable agricultural nearly impossible, Brehm said.
Still, he said about 80 percent of the country’s population is involved in farming, and agriculture makes up 40 percent of the GDP. Notable exports include wheat, fruit, nuts, goat and opium.
Brehm said according to a USDA bill that defined sustainability, sustainable agriculture maximizes contribution to the economy, does not damage natural resources and enhances the lives of farmers and people all across the country. These goals are nothing short of a “tall order” in Afghanistan, Brehm said, thanks to challenges like lack of education, healthcare and technology — even lack of access to markets.
“There’s a ring road which goes through the major regional capitols, but outside the ring road there isn’t a lot,” he said. “They really need more feeder roads so they can bring their foods to market. It would stimulate production.”
Something as simple as better access to markets, or even the ability to keep food cool in a refrigerator-like apparatus, could substantially improve Afghanistan’s agricultural situation, Brehm said. These are some of the things he and his colleagues focused on while abroad, as well as meeting face-to-face with village leaders to discuss what they saw as their area’s main agricultural concerns. Brehm said these “missions” led to a better understanding of the country and its people.
“(The Afghani people) are very resilient. They’ve got the capacity to recover from this,” Brehm said. “Recovery will take decades, but the first step will be to make peace. We’ve got to create an environment where markets can function.”
Kenton Bird, director of General Studies at the University of Idaho, said the goal of the Malcolm Renfrew Interdisciplinary Colloquium is to promote collaboration between disciplines or to encourage students to learn about a discipline they might be interested in.
“Sometimes students are unsure about their major, or want to learn about new disciplines,” he said. “This series might give them a taste of those new disciplines, and a taste of the best instructors at UI.”
All other presenting scholars this semester will be UI faculty and administration. Because Brehm is a scholar with the Martin Institute who visited UI to give his presentation, he is an exception to the rest of the series, Bird said.
This is Bird’s sixth semester involved with the series, and he said it never fails to be enlightening.
“It’s my favorite thing to do on Tuesday, because I always learn something new,” he said.
Lyndsie Kiebert
can be reached at
or on Twitter @lyndsie_kiebert