Tea Cultivation Returns

ASADABAD, April 4 (Quqnoos): The Agriculture Department in Kunar has started to farm tea shrubs as an initiative to restore harvests.

The shrubs are being replanted at the provincial centre, Asadabad after a gap of thirty years and it has been called a boost in the agriculture of the eastern province.

Kunar governor, Fazlullah Wahidi, who initiated replanting tea, said his province is geographically suitable to grow this plant and to expand this cultivation in the country.

“I hope this project will restore the previous tea planting in Afghanistan,” said Governor Wahidi.

Kunar head of Agriculture Department, Marsal Khan, said most of the farmers were engaged in farming both green and black tea, but war had impeded its cultivation.

Mohammad Rahim, 53, a local farmer in Kunar who use to grow tea decades ago, said he ‘cannot wait' to obtain some tea shrubs and resume planting this crop on his lands.

The tea shrubs have been contributed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock as an effort to enlarge this cultivation within the province and further on to the parts of the country.

Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock has bought the plants from Pakistan's Mansara city.

In this project, Kunar Agriculture head said, ten acres of lands will be cultivated tea and the shrubs will spread out across the country.