Support for
Seeds For Afghanistan

We in St. Augustine People for Peace and Justice believe that we must individually and as a society make restitution for the havoc that was rained down upon Afghan civilians in our name as part of our War on Terror and our role, by omission, in the chaos that resulted when the Soviet Union withdrew its invading/occupying forces and we left Al Qaeda intact.

This year we collected 133 packets of seed which we have sent to Seeds For Afghanistan. They are in contact with groups who will be traveling to Afghanistan in April and May, and our seeds will be included in one or both of these transports. Thank you so much to all who contributed for all of your support with this campaign.

Letter from Seeds For Afghanistan

This is to thank you profusely for the box of seeds we received today from you and your group. They are welcome and very needed.

I will send them with the next group of people going to Afghanistan -- probably in late April. They will be hand carried and given to widows, families with small gardens and perhaps an orphanage in the province of Wardak.

Nowruz Mobarak and tashakor

Jennifer Heath
Seeds for Afghanistan 

For more information or to make a financial contribution contact:

Seeds For Afghanistan needs Zone 4 seeds with a focus on all vegetables and herbs, particularly eggplant and tomatoes. Virtually all of the seed packets sold in the US are Zone 4 compatible because Zone 4 includes part of the US (the upper-middle tier of states). As long as you see Zone 4 or the yellow-gold color on the back of the packets indicating May-June planting months those seeds should be fine to send to Afghanistan. They also collect flower seeds, but prefer the kinds, like strawflowers or sunflowers, that can be taken to market and sold and won't fall apart. They ask that donors do NOT send poppy seeds.

Some Background

In 2001, after the tragedy of September 11, Jennifer Heath started a living-room action, "Seeds for Afghanistan," which has collected and distributed over 3 million packages of vegetable and flower seeds for the hungry people of Afghanistan. Afghans4Tomorrow and Afghanistan Relief Organization are Seeds for Afghanistan's umbrella organizations. More information about Seeds for Afghanistan and its greenhouse projects can be found on these websites.

(From Jennifer Heath's article in in the June, 2003 Seeds of Change Newsletter)

We're riding along the Shomali road north of Kabul, Afghanistan, with a van full of seeds and engineers. This highway was once called "The Green Tunnel," there were so many trees lining it on both sides. In 1979, as Soviet tanks trudged toward Kabul, they knocked them down, every one, for fear of mujahidin snipers. This is farm country: vineyards and wheat and orchards or fruit trees for family use shading the fields from the hard arid summer sun. In the 1990s, the Taliban, mostly Pakistanis, with young fundamentalist-trained Afghans in tow, came up from the South to conquer Afghanistan and in the process ripped all the grapevines and small fruit trees out by the roots to send back to Peshawar. They burned the homes and villages nearest the Shomali road. We drive past stubs of scorched vines here and there that the Taliban missed, past ruins of mud-brick buildings that now look like rock formations in Moab.

There are few trees left in Afghanistan. War combined with abject poverty contributed to an almost absolute deforestation throughout the country. The capital city of Kabul, the prize for all the brutal factions fighting across twenty-three years of war--once pristine, clean, full of glorious pines and spruce--is today a dusty landfill, a dump with tall empty dried trunks, few gardens, and none of the exquisite flowers that Afghans love. There's not a shrub left in what was once a magical, fragrant Land of Lilacs.

As if this weren't enough, Afghanistan has suffered a five-year drought and the famine that goes with it. War is a major cause of environmental destruction, worldwide. In post-war Afghanistan, the water is polluted, the climate changed by the constant heat of bombs and fire, and animals die or flee. It was a joy, and a surprise, just to see doves and magpies, to realize they had somehow survived.

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