Sustainable Wheat & Maize Production in Afghanistan (ACIAR funded, Project number: CIM/2011/026)

Since 2012, Australian support has resulted in the release of 23 wheat varieties by Afghanistan’s National Varietal Release Committee (NVRC). These varieties deliver both improved yield and disease tolerance. A 2015/16 farmer survey confirmed that farmers were indeed sharing seed with an average of three relatives/neighbours – although with no indication of how much seed was shared. This uncertainty regarding the adoption of new varieties has been intended to resolve by a recent DNA assessments of seed collected in 2015/16 that shows the general prevalence of the new varieties across 600 surveyed farms.