A tough assignment for a small group of Marines. They're trying to learn agriculture from the ground up in a week. They're not in uniform this week, but you can tell by the way they stand and listen, they're Marines. This group stationed at Camp Pendleton is getting a crash course in agriculture at Fresno State. The Marines are walking the furrows to learn what it takes to produce pomegranates, row crops and livestock.

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It was an emotional day for friends and family of the soldiers and airmen who make up Task Force Ironhorse as they now set to deploy to Afghanistan. More than 60 members of the Kentucky National Guard's Agribusiness Development Team II were honored during a ceremony at Keeneland Race Track. This is the second mission of this type for the Kentucky National Guard. Kentucky's first team is currently in Afghanistan and soon expected to return.

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It may not feature highly in Nato's counter-insurgency manual but British forces have discovered that one way to triumph in the most vital battle of the Afghan war, winning over the hearts and minds of the local population, is through their goats and sheep.

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After weeks of intense fighting over the Taliban stronghold of Marjah, U.S. Marines are now taking cautious aim at the drugs trade, with a program designed to pay opium farmers to destroy their own crops without a fight. The goal of the new program is to tackle the drugs trade that fuels the insurgency -- without alienating farmers whose livelihoods depend on a crop they planted last year. Last month, thousands of Marines fought to drive the Taliban out of Marjah, a major hub for the trafficking and trade of opium in southern Helmand, the province that produces most of the world's raw material for heroin.

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Rather than a contract on the Chicago Board of Trade -- like an American wheat farmer or a Thai rice grower -- Afzal was paid 400,000 Pakistani rupees (5,000 dollars) by a middleman for the world's biggest drugs cartels. Afzal will harvest in a month, when the tall green weeds on his land have burst into scarlet bloom and the poppy bulbs ooze sap that will become opium.

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Pomegreat, which claims to be the UK's leading pomegranate juice company, has entered a deal worth £3m to purchase pomegranate concentrate and fresh fruit from Afghanistan

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Sixty Arkansas National Guard soldiers and airman are in the last stages of training to help improve farming practices in Afghanistan

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Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced up to $20 million for capacity building efforts within Afghanistan's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL), the department responsible for managing that country's agricultural economy

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Trying to erradicate poppies in Afghanistan and cocoa in Colombia is like pushing a snowball up hill

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Instead of hand-tossing the wheat seed, Afghan farmer Wali Sauder took the Hoosiers' advice and used a hand-held spreader

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Reporting from Naray, Afghanistan - Army Spc. Kathy Tanson, who grew up on a farm in Corning in Northern California, is wrestling goats and sheep into submission so they can be vaccinated against parasites and anthrax

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The U.S. Marines were tense looking for bombs buried near a mud compound in this remote farming town in southern Afghanistan. Their new Afghan police colleagues were little help...

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The U.S. Marines were tense looking for bombs buried near a mud compound in this remote farming town in southern Afghanistan. Their new Afghan police colleagues were little help, joking around and sucking on lollipops meant for local kids. The government had sent the new group of 13 police to live and train the Marines just a few days earlier. Most were illiterate young farmers with no formal training who had been plucked off the streets only weeks before.

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About 60 S.C. National Guard soldiers have left for Afghanistan to help local farmers grow bigger crops and raise healthier livestock.

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Afghanistan's agriculture sector has suffered badly during 30 years of war, driving many farmers to grow opium, a lucrative crop with which other products have not been able to compete.

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Afghanistan's agriculture sector has suffered badly during 30 years of war, driving many farmers to grow opium, a lucrative crop with which other products have not been able to compete.

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If the United States really wants to stabilize Afghanistan, say six Afghans visiting Colorado farms, then it should focus more on building agricultural options beyond the illicit drug trade for the war-torn nation's mostly agrarian people.

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In addition to locating and killing terrorists and establishing security in eastern Afghanistan, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team hope to offer the local citizens a way forward.But to achieve the humanitarian goal, the soldiers needed a little help, in the name of John Bartee, Montgomery

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Before a battalion of U.S. Marines swooped into this dusty farming community along the Helmand River in early July, almost every stall in the bazaar had been padlocked, as had the school and the health clinic. Thousands of residents had fled. Government officials and municipal services were nonexistent. Taliban fighters swaggered about with impunity, setting up checkpoints and seeding the roads with bombs.

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The veterinary authorities have reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) that a number of wild birds have been found dead from highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI

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The Australian and global Meat industry is in danger of being held to ransom by animal rights activists and vegetarians. So lets take a look at who these people really are and if their motives are perhaps more sinister than they appear. PETA are an extremly wealthy group of lobbyists and political activists and today one of the wealthiest corperations in the world, enjoying the benifts of tax excemption because of their charity status.

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About a dozen Bulgarian meat processing companies will have to pay back the subsidies they have received under the EU’s Sapard programme after the prosecution discovered absorption violations, State Fund Agriculture chief Kalina Ilieva told the Bulgarian Parliament's committee on agriculture on September 9 2009. She was tight-lipped on either names or amounts. At the end of

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The Women’s Poultry Project in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province is a giant leap forward for the women who call the Panjshir River valley their home. The project is designed to empower women in the valley by assisting them in providing food and income for families. Greg Schlenz of the

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Egg prices have increased 10 per cent in the past fortnight, while chicken prices have gone up by over 30 per cent during the same period on hopes of rise in demand. Yesterday, the Namakkal zone of the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC) raised the price of an egg to Rs 2.15 from Rs 2.09 during the weekend. Egg prices, which touched a record Rs 2.50 in June, had touched a low of Rs 1.94 a fortnight ago. The Broiler

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Poultry scientists in the University of Arkansas System’s Division of Agriculture recently taught poultry production basics to a National Guard agricultural development team headed

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Afghanistan's only known pig has been released out of quarantine two months after he was locked away because of swine flu fears.The pig, a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, was quarantined because visitors to the zoo were worried it could spread the new H1N1 flu strain. "Our people did not

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Drought, conflict and lack of investment have caused a 20 percent fall in the export of products made from a silky lambskin known as karakul, and adversely affected the livelihoods of thousands, according to the Export Promotion Agency of Afghanistan (EPAA).

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