Officials from the Afghan Ministry of Agriculture Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) on Thursday said that the ministry plans to build at least five wheat storage facilities in five provinces across the country which will have the capacity of storing 150,000 metric tons of wheat. 
 
$28 million USD will be invested in building the storage facilities, said the officials. 
 
Meanwhile a number of economic commentators have said Afghanistan, by building strategic storage facilities, will be able to counter threats emerging from natural disasters and droughts. 
 
“To build a standard and operational wheat facility, you need electricity for it; the establishment of a storage facility for agricultural products is just one part of the infrastructure,” said economic analyst Mohammad Ali Mashaal. 
 
The storage facilities will be built in Baghlan, Balkh, Kandahar, Herat and Kabul provinces which will have the capacity of storing over 150,000 metric tons of wheat. 
 
MAIL officials said that the storage facilities will be state of the art and in line with international standards that will help the country overcome issues in the food sector during emergency situations. 
 
“There are storage facilities in some provinces, but they have little capacity; the ministry of agriculture and irrigation is working together with the World Bank to construct at least five storage facilities,” said MAIL spokesman Akbar Rustami. 
 
Based on the statistics, currently Afghanistan has nine storage facilities in nine provinces.
 
Afghanistan needs six million tons of wheat annually and of this, 4.5 million tons comes from domestic sources and another 1.5 million from abroad.
 
According to (MAIL), currently Afghanistan’s strategic warehouse capacity for cereal is estimated to be 270,000 tons and that government warmly welcomes investors willing to invest in the establishment of cereal warehouses - especially for wheat.