LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas National Guard is sending a second Agribusiness Development Team to Afghanistan early next year to continue efforts to build a cooperative extension service for farmers in Zabul province.
Arkansas’ first 60-member agribusiness team arrived in Afghanistan earlier this year and moved into the Tarnac River basin in mountainous Zabul province northeast of Kandahar. The team’s departure from Kandahar to its new forward operating base was severely delayed by logistics and infrastructure, however, because Zabul was a new location for an agribusiness team.
After missing the planting season because of the delay, the team turned its focus to creating an extension service offices in towns throughout the province where farmers can share knowledge and discuss common issues with liaisons to the provincial agriculture ministry.
“The whole decision and timeline for the second team rests on the fact that they can only be on orders one year,” said Col. Cary Shillcutt, Arkansas National Guard deputy chief of stafff or operations. “The key thing that Col. [Steve] Redman [commander of the deployed team] has been working on is building the strategic plan for the next team. Defining the need, building relationships. Then [second agribusiness team] will come and fall in on a plan. One team won’t be able to do it all.”
The state is trying to decide if it will send a third volunteer team in 2012.
The second team, led by Col. Mark Lumpkin of North Little Rock, commander of Arkansas’ 87th Troop Command, will replace the first team shortly after the new year. The team mobilizes for its final training in November, Shillcutt said.
“It’s really an interesting mission, at least I believe it’s going to be. If the people of Afghanistan are going to improve their economic standing, it will be through the agribusiness sector,” he said. “These teams consist of a relatively small number of people [about 60], but we will have a strategic impact through improving their agribusiness base in the province. And so goes the provinces, so goes the country.”
While the farming mission is relatively new to the Arkansas Guard, other states like Missouri, Tennessee and Texas have deployed similar development teams over the past two years.
One agribusiness team working in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province has partnered with farmers on more than 75 projects valued at about $6 million.
Building Afghanistan’s military, government and economy is the focus of the counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan that has come under fire in recent days after the removal of Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of U.S. and NATO troops there. President Barack Obama has placed Gen. David Petraeus, former commander of U.S. Central Command, over Afghanistan operations.
The rotation of Arkansas’ agribusiness teams will occur in the middle of an increase in U.S. troops in Afghanistan and an offensive to oust the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. And they’re not the only Arkansas units headed there.
After having 2009 off from major deployments, Arkansas troops are back in the deployment cycle for the next few years. Most of those deployments are to Afghanistan, as the focus shifts there from Iraq.
As troops withdraw from Iraq, however, units are still rotating in to support the movements. About 100 soldiers with Arkansas’ 185th Aviation Battalion will deploy there later this year. Another 100 soldiers with Arkansas’ 77th Theater Aviation Brigade - which flies Black Hawk helicopters - are headed to Kosovo this year.
The 806th Engineer Company of the Army Reserve, based in Conway, just arrived in Afghanistan last month. The 1037th Route Clearance Company of the Arkansas National Guard is expected to head home from Afghanistan about the same time as the first agribusiness team.
Little Rock Air Force Base C-130Js and their crews are maintaining a constant presence in Kandahar with continual rotations of troops. And Arkansas’ 39th Infantry Brigade is preparing for a 2012 deployment to Afghanistan.
When Obama announced the increase of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan in January, he said the plan was to start reducing U.S. troops in Afghanistan in mid-2011. The Canadian and Danish governments have plans to withdraw all of their troops next year, as well.
In a press briefing Thursday, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates clarified the plan for Afghanistan, indicating that the war in Afghanistan is far from over.
“We’re not asking for victory by December or by July of 2011,” he said. “We’re not asking that Afghanistan be stabilized 13 months from now. What we are asking is that by December, we have enough evidence to demonstrate ... that the approach that we’re taking is showing progress and that we’re headed in the right direction.”
Lumpkin is building his agribusiness team to fit that strategy, picking volunteers from across the Arkansas Air and Army National Guard with educational backgrounds in agriculture.
“It’s not tied to rank,” Shillcutt said. “It’s not rank dependent on who fills out that 11-member piece of the team. It’s really dependent on their expertise and education.”
The majority of the 60-member team is a security detail. That platoon will be comprised entirely of soldiers from Arkansas’ 142nd Fires Brigade.
The full team will gather for specialized training in mid-August. There is additional, contracted training with an agricultural focus set for the early fall, before the team leaves for its mobilization station.
“Last week I spoke with Steve [Redman] for about an hour,” Lumpkin said. “He was very impressed with the farmers’ ability to use the tools available to the maximum extent. It’s very low tech, but they make the most out of it. Some of the information I’ve gleaned from him so far is they grow grapes, wheat, almonds and 147 varieties of apricots. We’re going to try to learn what we can about grapes and apricots and specifically what types of diseases and factors affect them.”
Front Section, Pages 1 on 06/26/2010