Introduction and Background of Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL)

Introduction

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) is one of the ministries of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.
The ministry is working on the development and modernization of agriculture, livestock and horticulture.
Agriculture accounts for the source of livelihood of 80 percent of the country's population, and hence the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture is an institution that is continually trying to improve agriculture, increase yields, and crop farming.
The ministry launches programs in the fields of agriculture, livestock and horticulture to support the farmers, manage natural resources, and strengthen agricultural economics. Ministry of Agriculture's programs include promotion and introduction of higher-value economic crops, strengthening traditional products, identifying and publishing farm-tailored land technologies, boosting cooperative programs, agricultural economics, and export with marketing.


The ministry has a large structure in the provincial centers and in each province, an agricultural directorate and in each district, there is an agricultural affairs department. These institutions work to improve and modernize cultivation practices, increase crops, improve gardening, educate farmers, gardeners and livestock, and artificial insemination of animals and increase dairy products.

History

Afghanistan is a mountainous country with vast deserts and brilliant history of several millennia.

Its geographic location and topography is comparable only with a limited number of Asian countries.

The geographic shape of the Afghanistan begins from low levels and rise to high altitudes, finally reaching the “Roof of the World”; this shows that this geography has different ecosystems, changing of the ecosystems causes beauty and attractiveness in our land.
Proper weather is one of the important characteristics which has given Afghanistan a specific features.
 
Our country is now under construction; these efforts is going on with the cooperation of hard-working people, agriculture forms one of the important areas of it.

The first agricultural management was created during reign of King Amanullah Khan in 1919; during the reign of king Habibullah Khan and after that a series of measures was adopted for agricultural development.

The measures taken by the Ministry of Commerce from 1918-1937 in the field of agriculture, reforestations, construction of rivers, planting of trees, formation of experimental agricultural farms, nurseries and others are as follow:

1.    Construction of dams and excavation of canals from 1918- 1931.
2.    Creation of first independent directorate of agriculture in 1937.
3.    Creation of Ministry of Agriculture in 1948.
4.    Renaming of Ministry of Agriculture to Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation in 1960.