Afghanistan: Helmand Heads for Record Poppy Harvest

By IWPR trainees in Lashkar Gah (ARR No. 241, 9-Feb-07)
Helmand’s status as the opium capital of the world seems secure for the present. Sources inside the provincial government say this year’s opium poppy harvest could dwarf even the record levels of 2006. And a team of eradicators sent from Kabul to destroy the crop is meeting with armed resistance even before they begin work, say local residents.

“There is almost twice as much land under cultivation for poppy this year,” said Engineer Ghulam Nabi, head of Helmand province’s agriculture department. “Farmers are not receiving adequate support from the government, so they are growing more poppy.”

Helmand is part of the increasingly problematic south of Afghanistan, where a growing insurgency has made it difficult for the government to mount an effective eradication campaign. Farmers, emboldened by the lack of effective counter-measures, as well as by support from the Taleban, are increasing their poppy acreage.

“More and more poppy is being grown in areas under Taleban control,” said Ghulam.

In December, the United States government estimated that total opium production in Afghanistan for the year was 26 per cent higher than in 2005, while the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, cited a higher forecast increase of 49 per cent in the Afghanistan Opium Survey it published in October.

Helmand’s dominant role is clear from the statistics on how much land is used to grow opium poppy around the country. The UNODC report estimated that this one province accounted for 42 per cent of all Afghan cultivation in 2006, far more than any other part of the country. The poppy crop area in Helmand has been expanding exponentially - last year it was two-and-a-half times the land used in 2005.

If predictions are correct, 2007 could be the biggest year ever in Helmand. Ghulam said that this year there were 60,000 hectares planted with poppy, compared with 35,000 last year. However, he underlined that his agriculture department only looked at registered agricultural lands. Farmers are also planting poppy in the desert, beyond the scope of his data.

The UNODC’s estimated 2006 cultivation figure of 69,000 hectares includes desert areas. There are no estimates for the total area under cultivation in 2007.

The prognosis is especially troubling in view of the large-scale counter narcotics efforts being mounted by the Afghan government, with generous support from America and Britain. Together, the two countries have pledged over two billion US dollars to help Afghanistan deal with its drug problem, including beefing up the police and judiciary, developing alternative livelihoods, and, when all else fails, destroying the poppy crop of those who persist in planting it.

FARMERS SAY THEY HAVE NO CHOICE

In Helmand, at least, farmers have resisted all efforts to persuade them to switch crops.

“What am I supposed to plant? I have to support my family,” said Haji Ramtullah, a farmer in Maarja, a district close to the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. “If there was some other work I would never grow poppy. But I can’t make enough money from vegetables, and there aren’t any jobs. We have no factories, we don’t even make matches here.”

Some British and American counter-narcotics specialists have remarked privately that Helmand’s farmers grow poppy out of greed rather than necessity. But Ramtullah insists he is barely eking out a living.

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