Farmers in Afghanistan are increasingly adapting to poppy cultivation, abandoning their other crops like wheat, in Kandahar and Helmand, two of the southern Afghan provinces, considered as the country’s most fertile land, as the economic uncertainty grows since the Taliban’s return to power last year. 

“There is nothing else to cultivate. We were growing wheat before. This year—we want to cultivate poppy,” TOLOnews reported a farmer as saying. Unlike other crops, poppy cultivation and its sale provide involve a lesser degree of uncertainty. 

“If we don’t cultivate poppy, we don’t get a good return, the wheat doesn’t provide a good income,” Mohammed Karim, another farmer from the country’s southern part, said.

Before its return to power last year, the Taliban had promised to reduce poppy cultivation to zero, citing their previous record from the year 2001, when they had managed to bring down the poppy cultivation by almost 90 percent before they were pushed out of power from the United States.  

According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Afghanistan is the largest producer of opium, accounting for almost 80 percent of the world’s total supply. By 2018, the share of the illegal heroin trade in the country’s economy was around 11 percent, UNODC reported.

Contrary to the Taliban’s previous assurances on banning poppy cultivation, the group this year seems to be actively encouraging opium production.

“There are no restrictions this year. If the Taliban wanted to ban it, they must let us grow it this year at least,” Peer Mohammed, another Afghan farmer, was quoted as saying by TOLOnews.  

With no prospect of international recognition, at least in the near future term, the illegal heroin trade offers significant revenue to the cash-starved Taliban regime which remains under international sanctions.    

In Afghanistan, a country that has been in armed conflict for over four decades now, poppy cultivation has become an integral part of the country’s rural economy, primarily due to extremely uncertain economic conditions. 

In the last two decades, the United States had spent over $7.6 billion, attempting, though unsuccessfully, to reduce the poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. Instead, the production only kept growing with each passing year. 

Importantly, the Taliban, which had been controlling most of the country’s rural parts in the last two decades' insurgency, had earned significant revenue from it. 

It is highly unlikely that the Taliban would ever be able to eliminate poppy cultivation, especially without economic assistance from the international community; nor it would like to do so until the western donors resume their development assistance.  

(SAM)