Afghanistan’s red, juicy pomegranate season has begun, but this year thousands of tons of pomegranates are rotting along the border with Pakistan. Pomegranate trucks have been stopped at the border, due to which thousands of people have also lost their jobs. Is known. It is one of the most important crops of southern Afghanistan. Two months of the Taliban’s occupation of the country are about to be completed, due to which these pomegranates are also ripening in the midst of many ongoing crises. Haji Nani Agha, head of the Fresh Fruits Union in Kandahar, says, “There are 15,000 agricultural laborers in this area who have lost their jobs due to the closure of business, and now the fruits are rotting.” Melons in the shade of pomegranate bushes The sacks and boxes filled with these pomegranates are being loaded onto trucks. Strict restrictions These trucks will soon head towards the Afghanistan-Pakistan border at Spin Boldak. But the journey of many trucks that went before them ended there. Pakistan has removed sales tax on imported fruits to boost trade with its neighboring country, but has tightened restrictions for ordinary Afghans trying to cross the border. Pakistan is trying to stop people from crossing the border illegally
This has triggered a kind of tug of war between the Pakistani authorities and the new rulers of Afghanistan. The Taliban have closed the border several times in protest. Exporters hoping to sell their products were sometimes stuck here for days and weeks in the scorching heat. “It’s a disaster for the whole of Afghanistan, because all of Afghanistan’s trade goes through this border,” says Agha. Normally 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes of products are exported through this border to Pakistan. Opium cultivation option but Abdul Baqi Bina, member of Chamber of Commerce of Kandahar told that so far only 4,490 tonnes of goods have gone out of the country. “These goods are waiting to be sold, but the longer it takes, the worse their quality and the lower their value,” he says. I was suffering losses due to the ongoing battle. For years, previous Afghan governments backed by Western support and international grantees had persuaded farmers to replace illegal opium cultivation with the fruit. Pomegranate was one of those fruits.
