KABUL - Drought had already devastated Mr Allawddin Rahimi's wheat fields when the Taliban reached his village in northern Afghanistan. The group's takeover left him with no choice but to flee.
Climate change is expected to have severe effects on the country over the coming decades, with the ousted Afghan government and the United Nations projecting extreme temperature rises of more than 6 deg C if global carbon emissions are left unchecked. "The overarching drivers on top of a whole lot of other things are the drought and the economic crisis," Ms Mary Ellen McGroarty, country director for the UN's World Food Programme , said in an interview from Kabul.It's not just rural farmers who are suffering.
"The only thing that matters now is that we survive and eat. We're like wild animals in a jungle fighting for a slice of bread. That is the current state of Afghanistan." The increasing risk of extreme weather events also raises the prospect of prolonged water scarcity in the country's rural areas, according to the World Meteorological Organisation.
"Wheat is the backbone of Afghanistan livelihoods," said Mr Richard Trenchard, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation's representative in Afghanistan.Meanwhile US sanctions have cut off much of the country's banking sector and left its central bank struggling to fund imports of essential goods, including food.
The future of those projects, along with scores of others related to water and irrigation, is now unclear. No matter what happens with the project, the regime will have to carefully manage water resources to ensure food security in the future, according to Dr Mayar.
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