NEW HAVEN, Ind. — The Indiana National Guard has been working in Afghanistan the past few years to help the country’s farmers learn improved agricultural and conservation techniques.

Bart Lomont, who grew up on his family’s farm near New Haven, spent nearly a year in the country as a part of the Guard’s 3-19th Agribusiness Development Team (ADT). He returned home in August 2011.

Lomont is a first lieutenant with the 122nd Fighter Wing of the Indiana Air National Guard stationed in Fort Wayne. While in Afghanistan, he served as the ADT’s agricultural marketing officer. Lomont, who volunteered after hearing about the mission, was the lone Air Force member on the otherwise all-Army team.

“They have absolutely no water management or conservation backgrounds,” said Lomont, of the Afghani people. “They get about 20 to 30 inches of rain a year, but they have no way to collect it. These people are worried about feeding their families, not feeding the world.”

While in Afghanistan, the 64-member ADT was headquartered at Forward Operating Base Salerno in Khowst Province. The team included 34 security personnel. A couple of years ago, Forbes named Afghanistan the world’s most dangerous country, Lomont noted.

“That’s why people in uniform are working there, and not civilians,” he said. “We had security every time we went out on a mission. Before we went out each day, we would say a prayer asking for safe travels.”

He spoke March 10 during the annual meeting of the Allen County Soil and Water Conservation District. During their time in Afghanistan, team members worked with a local Afghani university as part of a program to put trained Afghani extension agents in each of the province’s 13 districts. The plan also called for university officials to work with high-school educators to put an agricultural focus in the schools.

By the time the team left the region, 42 local farmers had been trained by the 13 extension agents, and 120 Afghan educators and 600 students had also been trained, Lomont said.

“Youth development is the key,” he stated. “Education provides an opportunity. The children were definitely the most receptive and willing to learn. The adults, who have seen aid workers come and go, would say, ‘Oh, you’re here again.’”

While in the country, team members constructed a greenhouse and set up a demonstration farm. They also put several solar dehydrator systems in the province and introduced beekeeping for honey and as a pollination method.

A typical farm in Afghanistan is about 1-2 acres, Lomont explained. The average farmer also might have a few chickens.

“If they were wealthy, they might have beef cattle. Not an industry, but just a cow or two. They were some of the meagerest cattle you’ve ever seen. There were no dairy cows,” he said.

Some of the plans team members had to help in Afghanistan were quickly tempered after they arrived, Lomont said. “We had these grand ideas such as thinking we would help them to turn manure into biogas. That’s a great pipe dream,” he explained.

“Instead, tips on grain storage were highly welcomed. Before we arrived, they would bury their grain in a pot in the ground. We introduced them to polymer bags for the grain, instead.”

Indiana is one of seven states to have an Agribusiness Development Team. The 3-19th was the third such Hoosier team to spend a year in Afghanistan. The first two teams started and built up a relationship with the local university and branched out into high schools.

The fourth team is currently in the country and a fifth is scheduled to go after the fourth returns, Lomont said.

“The changes (in Afghanistan’s agricultural system) should be measured in decades,” Lomont noted. “I’m optimistic that it’s headed in the right direction, but it will take people willing to go over and work toward that effort.”

While he was in Afghanistan, Lomont wrote a blog detailing the progress and adventures of the ADT. To read it, visit www.bartlomont.blogspot.com