Cashmere is a luxury product that finds customers as far away as the United States, Britain and Europe. Afghan farmers not long ago collected the thick winter undercoat their goats shed every spring and threw it on the fire to heat their homes and cook their food.

The super-soft fluff that comes off in clumps as the weather warms up, and is cleaned, refined and spun into yarn is cashmere. Traders, processors, donors and international businesses are cottoning on to Afghanistan’s potential as a major producer of cashmere. The Afghanistan government has also recently come up with a cashmere action plan, having recognised potential for cashmere and aiming to target the highest end of the global luxury market, where a designer-label cashmere sweater can cost $1,000.

Years after the 2001 US invasion of Afghanistan, which ousted the Taliban, foreign businesses started arriving, investors willing to bring money and expertise to develop a profitable, niche market. Only about 30 to 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s seven million goats are combed for cashmere, even though up to 95 per cent of the animals could become part of the production chain. Most of the raw product is bought by traders who sell it to Chinese middlemen to feed the mills that produce affordable clothing for much of the world.

The global market value for cashmere is over a billion dollars. As China is known to blend different qualities of cashmere to achieve volume, the top end of the market is wide open for the unadulterated Afghan product.