The people of Barwang, a village perched atop a mountain in Afghanistan’s central highlands, have been cutting back on meals for the last three months.

A few scrappy wheat fields are not enough to provide for the 450 hungry mouths in the village, located in a region largely forgotten by an international community more focused on quelling a Taliban insurgency in the south and east. Already lacking electricity and a school, the villagers have started selling some of their precious livestock to buy flour – a staple whose price leapt 75 per cent in Afghanistan between January and April.