The soils of war: the real agenda behind agricultural reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq

This briefing determines that the US’s agricultural reconstruction work in Afghanistan and Iraq is an intrinsic part of the US military campaign. It asserts that the US pushes neo-liberal policies giving easy entry to US agribusiness and has growing influence over international donor agencies like the World Bank and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The research asserts that these cases constitute a likely template for US activities overseas in its pursuit of the war on terror and US corporate interests.

The briefing makes some pointed observations, including:

• The war provides corporations with both a lucrative short-term market in the blossoming “reconstruction” industry and an opportunity to integrate Afghanistan into their global production
  networks and markets in the long term
  
• Iraq is already the number one destination for its hard red winter wheat exports and a top destination for its rice. It is a US$1.5bn market that wasn’t accessible to US companies before the invasion, because of the sanctions
  
• In Iraq, the US Army is directly involved in re-establishing the 'farmers’ unions' that were formerly under the control of the central government and in using these unions to distribute its aid, such as seeds, pesticides and machinery. Further evidence of the integration of integration of the US military operations and aid work
  
• the Pentagon now controls more than 20 per cent of US Official Development Assistance. According to Betty McCollum in the US House of Representatives, the fact that USAID has to have an office of military affairs to communicate with the Pentagon “means that something has gone horribly
  awry”.