Challenges at the Faculty of Agriculture

Each day I get to know more faculty in the Ag school, and get a better idea of challenges facing the program. Decades ago, the US poured money and resources into the Faculty of Agriculture. Over a dozen professors from US schools (mostly the University of Nebraska) taught a majority of the classes, trained technicians for the laboratories and oversaw administration. Now the older, Afghan faculty, with the best training and experience, expect a restoration of the old model and barring that are not inspired by the prospect of years worth of rebuilding an academic program. Younger faculty are ambitious and want to improve, but have had extremely poor training and preparation. Some younger faculty are currently outside the country seeking higher degrees, and when they return will provide traction to move all the faculty forward. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Higher Education sends the Faculty of Agriculture increasing numbers of students every year (currently over 1200 students to about active 40 faculty)
Afghanistan is awash in money for development, and native, technical expertise is highly sought, but next to impossible to find. Many professors would like to contract with NGOs (monthly salary for professors is US 400), but in general the Faculty of Agriculture has few resources and not much expertise to contribute, and so are not sought out as a resource by development groups. But as existing resources are mobilized (new lab equipment, laboratory and teaching resources) the plan is that the Faculty will become more active in development.
I've spent a lot of time meeting with professors from all the departments, so that's a quick run-down on the realities I hear a lot about everyday over many cups of tea and a lot of hospitality.