Crops rot on Pak battle lines
Farmers in Pakistan's northwest were preparing for a bumper harvest when a punishing military assault against Taliban fighters sent them fleeing their homes.
They fear hardship and hunger as crops spoil in untended fields, with aid agencies warning that it could take years for farmers to recover.
Aerial bombardments, shelling and fierce battles between government troops and Islamist insurgents in the rugged northwest have uprooted about 1.5 million people from their homes since the onslaught began on April 26.
Most of them were farmers who abandoned fields of wheat, maize, vegetables and rice, which now lie rotting as the battles rage.
"I have left it at the mercy of Allah, only he can now look after my fields and my crop," said 68-year-old Fazal Karim, standing under the scorching sun outside his tent at Yar Hussain camp just south of the fighting.
Karim grows onions, wheat and rice on five acres (two hectares) of land in a small village in the fertile Swat valley, but as Taliban fighters infiltrated his hometown, he left the cool mountains for the dusty government-run camp.
"The wheat crop was almost ready. I think I should forget about my crop. It will ruin me financially and I will have no money to live," he told AFP.
Agriculture accounts for about 20 percent of Pakistan's gross domestic product, and many people depend on the land in Buner, Lower Dir and Swat districts, where the military has gone on the offensive against the Taliban.
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