KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The bread basket of Afghanistan remains decidedly frayed -- and signs of Canada's almost year-old promise to help restore at least some of its former glory remain conspicuously scant.
The lush Arghandab River valley -- once home to a nourishing bounty of fruits and vegetables, including melons, grapes, wheat and the country's world-renowned pomegranates -- is struggling to live up to its former reputation.
Nowadays, opium -- the far less wholesome but decidedly more lucrative byproduct of the poppies that flourish in Afghanistan's dust-dry conditions -- is the crop of choice.
"Afghans don't have any other business except agriculture," said Haji Azim, 45, who farms in the restive and battle-pocked Panjwaii district, the cradle of the Taliban.
"We don't have any factories in Kandahar where people go and work, so (agriculture) is the only good business here."
Enter Canada's $50-million plan to refurbish the Dahla dam and irrigation system on the Arghandab River, the centrepiece of Ottawa's pledge to help restore the valley to its former glory while undermining the drug trade and unemployment that feeds the Taliban at the same time.
Ottawa itself has described the project as "urgent."
So far, however, the only obvious sign of Canadian involvement is a spiffy new observation post high above the dam, where the rag-tag handful of Afghan National Police officers who man the tower enjoy a breathtaking view of the valley below.
The officers are but a fraction of the 10,000 temporary workers who are to be hired to help with the project, which includes building the roads and bridges leading to the dam.
"Everything in Afghanistan moves slowly," said Warrant Officer Frank Berube, whose team recently provided force protection to two specialist engineers so they could visit the dam to check the observation post.
The Arghandab River, which begins as snow in the mountains to the northeast, cuts a majestic 400-kilometre swath through parched desert on either side as it forms the border between the Zhari and Panjwaii districts.
About 35 kilometres northeast of Kandahar -- population somewhere between 500,000 and 800,000 -- stands the Dahla dam, an impervious clay structure that speaks to a more peaceful time in a region racked by decades of relentless violence.
The shimmering grey-blue water of the reservoir and the river's wide green fringes, overlooked by gnarled hills and ragged mountains on either side, provide a wondrous contrast to the dusty moonscape that surrounds the area's outer reaches.
Built by the Americans in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the dam is an essential part of a 40-kilometre network of irrigation canals downstream, including a diversion channel into Kandahar city.
Years of civil war and neglect have left the system in sorry shape and barely functional.
Sluice gates designed to regulate water flows are permanently rusted in position. Silt has robbed the reservoir above the dam of about 30 per cent of its capacity and diminished the flows through the canal network.
"Everything operates, to a degree," said Jason Schmaltz, who works with the Canadian International Development Agency. "(But) it has been neglected."
Signature project has 2011 target
Still, the precious liquid resource remains as valuable as ever in the desert region, which is part of the reason why the Canadian government has adopted the dam and irrigation system as its "signature" reconstruction project at the behest of the Afghan government.
Underscoring its importance to Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper made a brief sojourn there during his visit to Afghanistan earlier this month.
The project involves a modest refurbishment of the system. The completion target is 2011, when Canada is due to end its combat role in Afghanistan.
The contract for the actual work was only awarded late last year jointly to Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin, Canada's largest engineering firm, and Hydrosult, a Canadian-based water-consulting company. A small vanguard of SNC-Lavalin officials, followed by a more detailed plan of action, is expected in the coming months.
It's all slow going, given not only the extremely hostile environment in which the work has to be done, but also the snail's pace at which pretty much everything in Afghanistan is accomplished.
Canada's ambassador in Kabul, Ron Hoffmann, conceded the timelines were "ambitious" and said security concerns were a "significant part" of the project.
For local farmers like 39-year-old Haji Akka, patience is running low.
"If the foreigners work faster, we may be able to get water from the Dahla dam for our fields and gardens," Akka said.
Like most everything else in this factionalized country, who gets how much of the Arghandab River is a contentious question. "It's highly politicized," said Schmaltz.
So important is the allocation issue, Afghans themselves have devised a system of appointed and elected officials called "mirabs" -- representatives who get together to decide who should get how much water.
It's not always successful. For example, someone -- possibly a local farmer who didn't think he was getting enough water -- blew up one of three sluice-gates on one side of the dam. It remains unusable.
In all, 80 per cent of the population in the region depends on the life-giving waterways, a fact recognized even by the Taliban insurgents who are fighting to overthrow the government and expel NATO forces, observers say.
Still, given the unpredictable nature of their bloody insurgency, getting to the dam requires carefully crafted military protection -- well-armed Canadian soldiers in armoured vehicles who constantly scan the mountains for ambushes and check culverts for explosives.
Depending on the threat assessments, the drive along mostly paved highway from Kandahar can take anywhere from about 45 minutes to several hours.
Of the $50 million Ottawa has promised for the project, $8 million is for security -- not so much for the dam itself, which is all but indestructible, but for the foreigners and others who will design and do the rehabilitation work -- when it begins.
In the meantime, the former glory of the lush valley remains little more than a distant memory for Afghans -- particularly those who have long since fled the conflict and settled in other parts of the world, including Canada.
Nahim, a former Kandahari who works in a bargain store in downtown Toronto, waxed lyrical recently when he thought back to the harvest the valley yielded during his boyhood years.
"The fruits," he said, smiling broadly and gesturing with his hands, "were this big."
