 |
GRAPE GARDENS IN THE DESERT After twenty-three years of war and Taliban rule, Afghanistan is starting to rebuild basic infrastructure that the West takes for granted. Fortunately however, much of its historical heritage remains largely intact. Although a Taliban presence remains in the south and east of the country, conditions in the historic western city of Herat are relatively peaceful. As a desert oasis situated on several important trade routes, this city is known to be at least 2,500 years old, and was a major centre of Persian culture between the 11th and 16th centuries. Today, the population is a mixture of Tajiks, and a Hazara Mongol minority that was persecuted under the Taliban. Urban life resembles the European Middle Ages, with bustling streets where blacksmiths, carpenters and bakers ply their trades. Houses and shops are commonly made of mud brick. Several crops are commonly grown in the Herat region, including an ancient wheat, rockmelons, pistachios, alfalfa, apricots, and almonds. However, it is the grapes, renowned for their taste and reputed to be the best in the world, that give Herat its fame. According to a legend related by the celebrated Persian Omar Khayyam nine hundred years ago, Herat’s King Shariman had a courageous son who was the world’s best marksman, and who saved the life of an eagle by killing with an arrow a snake coiled around its neck. Exactly a year later the eagle returned to where it had been saved, and deposited some strange seeds, which were later planted, yielding grapes. Near Herat is found the garden where it is claimed that grapes were first planted. The history of Herat’s grapes is shrouded in mystery, but it is hypothesised that around 2000 BC they may have been grown by the Aryans, a nomadic people who spread across Central Asia during this era. Later, the kingdom of Khorasan, with Herat as its capital, was well known for wine made from the Laal and Looghi Wine varieties of grape. Laal are noted for their extreme sweetness, and Looghi Wine are large, red and resilient to climatic extremes. During the 19th century, the Armenian and Jewish communities were Herat’s main wine producers. Locals claim the existence of between 72 and 76 different grape varieties in the Herat region. These are unique for several reasons, including their delicacy, for which reason they get spoiled within two days - a challenge to growing them as an export crop. Some are best eaten fresh, while others are commonly dried. Up until the 1979 Afghan War, many grapes were dried for export in traditional drying houses. Today, some are exported to Russia to make wine, and others are reserved for the production of Herati vinegar. Some are specially adjusted to Herat’s harsh climate, and cannot survive in other Afghan provinces. Herat experiences four months of dry winds from the north in summer, and a low precipitation concentrated in the winter months where temperatures go below freezing. These challenges have led the local inhabitants to develop a globally unique growing method. To be protected from climatic extremes, grape vines are grown inside walled gardens with four-metre high mud walls, planted in angled trenches, and trained up sloping mud banks. In a similar fashion to companion planting, grapes are grown alongside diverse flowers, herbs, and fruit trees including fig, apple, pear, pomegranate and plum. Over the last couple of years, a Kyoto-based Japanese development NGO called NICCO has been drawing on the expertise of Byron Bay’s Seed Savers’ Network to help steer reconstruction along sustainable lines. Since 1979, NICCO has been helping the poor in developing countries to become economically and socially self-sustaining, according to its economic justice principles. In Afghanistan and several other Asian countries, ancient irrigation channels called karez run as deep as twenty metres under the ground. Those in the vicinity of Herat direct water down from three springs in the mountains to irrigate village fields on the plains, enabling agriculture to succeed in an area of very low rainfall. One of NICCO’s major plans is to repair the karez, returning them to a functional state, and facilitating dryland grape cultivation. Jude and Michel Fanton of the Seed Savers Network influenced karez design by encouraging tree planting along the channels and the creation of more ecological niches to harbour water plant diversity. Michel is a juror for Slow Food’s Award for the Defense of Biodiversity, and last year he nominated Herat’s grapes for the honour. Italy’s Slow Food movement, which has focused much effort on protecting unique food varieties, is considering working with Herati grape growers to determine whether it can help the region’s grape crop survive competition from large-scale industrial produce. Slow Food representatives visited the city last September, making an initial visit to decide whether to set up a Presidium, the movement’s term for an artisan food it intends to help safeguard. Making two visits to Herat and the surrounding region over the last couple of years, Jude and Michel have been running sustainable agriculture courses for lecturers, and later for students, at Herat University’s Faculty of Agriculture. Between January and September last year, a university farm glasshouse and tree nursery was planted with a thousand grapevines in five different varieties, and money was donated by Seed Savers towards tagging costs. Challenged by war, the worst drought in decades between 1999 and 2003, and flooding in January this year, the Heratis have become a resilient people. During the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, Herat experienced intensive US and British use of cluster bombs, arguably in breach of the Geneva Convention. These fragment into numerous ‘bomblets’, of which some fail to explode. In some villages, the presence of unexploded bomblets (some buried under the earth) has prevented farmers, including grape farmers, from returning to their fields, due to the risk of injury or death. These unexploded munitions are being cleared by UN experts. With the attention now being given to the protection of Herat’s unique grape varieties, hopefully they have a long future ahead of them. An American NGO called Roots of Peace estimates that following decades of war and drought about 45% of Afghanistan’s grapevines have been destroyed or abandoned, and under its Mines to Vines project, it has funded hundreds of Afghan landmine clearers on the Shomali Plains to the north of Kabul. These specialists have cleared villages, vineyards and irrigation channels, allowing Afghan refugees from Pakistan to return to viticulture. CONTACTS Seed Savers Network, PO Box 975, Byron Bay, NSW 2481, Australia Slow Food Movement, Via Mendicità Istruita, 8, 12042 Bra (CN), Italy Roots of Peace, 48 Fernwood Way, San Rafael, CA 94901, USA
|
