SIP Success Story: "Conflictfood“ helps farmers in Afghanistan
Poverty is a major problem in Afghanistan and affects many parts of society. The country belongs to the twelve regions worldwide with the lowest gross domestic product and as new studies show: Almost half of the families in Afghanistan cannot afford to send their children to school. Thankfully, there are projects like ”Conflictfood” that want to help at the root – and support local farmers to prosper with establishing important trade relations to the West.
Saffron Harvest in Afghanistan
In June 2018, the iF team honored the project with the iF SOCIAL IMPACT PRIZE and 5,000 Euro in prize money. We are happy to hear great news from the organization’s Gernot Würtenberger: “We are very thankful and happy that iF is joining Conflictfood’s journey – literally: the support we have received helped us to make this year’s trip to farmers in Afghanistan and open new trading perspectives for them."
To support
local farmers in conflict regions is a matter of heart for the team of Conflictfood, while they travel different regions to find the best local agricultural products on site and to trade directly with small farmers! “Through fair and direct trade we can open up new markets to them and tackle poverty at the root.”
This
is exactly what they did with the support by iF in Afghanistan: The team around Gernot Würtenberger and Salem El-Mogaddedi discovered promising farming projects with much potential for the European market. They visited a self-governing female collective who turned their backs on opium plantation and are now growing the great spice saffron. “We also visited nut farmers in the remote north of the country, who, since generations, grow rare and to the West unknown sorts of almonds”, says Würtenberger. Now that they have discovered and checked the new hidden potentials and harvest goods, they will check on possible trade relations to Europe and other parts of the world.
Publicity to promote their farmers is a key component for the success of Conflictfood. “Thanks to the iF SOCIAL IMPACT PRIZE our stories were covered by the press, when we came back to Germany! Thank you to the whole iF team!”
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