Aquaculture in Afghanistan?

Aquaculture in Afghanistan?
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho.

When I got to Moldova (my first “development” experience) I was almost incensed by the persistent requests for computers by Moldovans when they had inconsistent power, no little-no heating, and a myriad of other problems but I learned/relearned that
#1 It is hard to tell/convince people what they need (as opposed to what they want)
#2 My first impressions aren’t always right

In Afghanistan I would never have guessed that there would be even one fish farm in the country but here I was looking at a fairly (for Afghanistan) sophisticated hatchery.

Since seeing Afghans taste for fish (I wouldn’t have guessed), this hatchery, and having seen irrigation in Afghanistan it has occurred to me that small scale aquaculture might have a place in Afghanistan. The inhabited parts of Afghanistan that I have been to have surface irrigation ditches everywhere (about as inefficient as one can get) the way this system works I don’t see a reason that the better supplied ditches (i.e. those that aren’t in danger of going dry) that are close to (relatively) good roads can’t have little “micro-hatcheries”. It is hard to describe how many of these ditches are positioned relative to the fields but at the points right before fields little hatcheries could be built which would give people extra income/food, use no extra water (very important), provide a water storage basin of sorts, and provide the crops with really good “pre-fertilized” water (the sharing of hatchery waste water is something I have seen successfully done in many parts of Southeast Asia).