On February 9, the Alternative Livelihoods Program for the Eastern Region (ALP/E) hosted a pair of high-profile guests. Tom Schweich, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, and former CBS news anchor Dan Rather visited several agriculture programs implemented by the program, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by DAI.

The guests reviewed key elements of the value chain for vegetables, including farms, women-operated seedling nurseries, a packing facility, and a Jalalabad wholesale market recently renovated by ALP/E.

At their first stop, the pair visited the Surkhrod Vegetable Packing Facility, which is staffed exclusively by women.With the assistance of ALP/E’s Gender and Micro-Enterprise Unit, women working at the facility have overcome cultural obstacles to become part of a unique initiative that allows them to become part of the global value chain for vegetables and participate in the formal economy for the first time. Trained and certified in sanitation, quality control, and food handling, these women operate the only Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP)-certified facility in the country.

At the second site, Secretary Schweich and Mr. Rather toured fields once dedicated to illicit opium poppy, now planted with gourmet vegetables such as radicchio, colored cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and specialty lettuce. These vegetables are linked to progressive traders assisted by the project who in turn sell to high-end restaurants and hotels in Kabul and Dubai. Two of the 50 women entrepreneurs who run seedling nurseries at the site demonstrated their products and answered questions posed by the visitors.

The final site visit was to the region's main agricultural trading center, the Jalalabad Wholesale Market. ALP/E recently invested $400,000 to renovate the structurally unsound and unhygienic market and improve safety, hygiene, and efficiency for some 160 local wholesalers who trade more than $30 million there annually.

“It is clear that farmers grow poppy as a desperate measure to feed their families," commented Secretary Schweich at the conclusion of his visit. "But as the farmers themselves told us, growing poppy is a cause of shame, and if given an alternative they will take it.”

For more information ALP/E, please visit http://www.alper-af.com