Spud farmer returns to roots to help Afghans

To help poor Afghani villagers make money on potatoes instead of opium poppies, Idaho farmer Pat Rowe used a little old technology: root cellars.

The 68-year-old Rowe, whose family raises tubers and wheat on 2,000 acres near American Falls, went to the Central Asian country with a root cellar design common across his home state's famous potato country in the 1930s and 1940s.

As part of his work in Bamiyan, located about 100 miles west of Kabul, Rowe said it was important that his potato sheds not be too sophisticated. They had to be built with materials readily available in the impoverished valley between the Hindu Kush and the Koh-i-Baba mountains with only dirt roads, a gravel runway, scant trees and almost no electricity.

[keepinitreal]

That is a wonderful suggestion. I pray he doesn't lose his life trying to help them. Maybe someone can invent a bathtub for them also with unpolluated water.

LOL!

[Jim Floyd]

Pat - I applaud your work! Keep it going. We did a similar project at an orphanage in Pakistan. Take a look at
http://hopeinaction.org/pakistan/pakistan-orp...