Abstract

The UNODC estimated that opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan decreased by 21% (from 131,000 hectares (ha) to 104,000), between 2003/04 and 2004/05. In some provinces reductions (in both absolute and relative terms), were far more significant. In the province of Nangarhar, for example, the level of cultivation fell by 96% (from 28,213 ha in 2004/05 to 1,093 ha in 2003/05). To date such significant reductions in the amount of land allocated to opium poppy have not been sustained from one season to the next. Following the Taliban prohibition in 2000/01, cultivation bounced back to 84,000 hectares in 2001/02 – surpassing the 1999/2000 levels. Since the fall of the Taliban, at the provincial level, significant reductions (and these have been few and far between) have not been sustained into a second year. Yet, in 2005/06 there are some encouraging signs. Of particular significance is evidence of the maintenance of the negligible levels of opium poppy cultivation recorded in the 2004/05 growing season in the more accessible and relatively asset wealthy areas of the provinces of Nangarhar and Laghman. This is without precedent in Afghanistan. However, we should remain cautious, this trend is far from uniform. Whilst there is some evidence that the level and incidence of cultivation is diminishing in those districts with better access to assets (including governance and security), the same cannot be said of some provinces in the southern region of Afghanistan, where dramatic increases in opium poppy cultivation (particularly in Helmand) are predicted. There is a real danger that achievements at the district and provincial level in some parts of the country may be obscured beneath the headline total cultivation figure. This report moves beyond the common tendency to use aggregate levels of opium poppy cultivation as the primary measure for assessing performance on counter narcotics objectives in Afghanistan. This kind of nation-wide picture neither captures the diversity in opium poppy cultivation across the country, north equalitative shifts that are taking place at the local level. Instead, this paper looks at the more nuanced picture beneath these headline figures. It maps out apparent progress in reducing opium poppy cultivation in the more accessible and asset wealthy districts of some provinces but also charts the expansion of poppy cultivation in the more outlying districts of these same provinces, peripheral areas where access to viable legal livelihoods, governance and security remains problematic. The growing body of research on the opium economy in Afghanistan and the findings of this Study, support this ‘ centre’ - ‘periphery’ classification. This distinction is helpful for analysing the nature of opium poppy cultivation, the vulnerability of different areas to the spread of cultivation, and for defining areas of economic potential. However, in the south of Afghanistan currently this distinction appears less clear, with a disturbing absence of any ‘ centre’ to talk of in either Qandahar or Helmand. In these provinces the Government of Afghanistan and the international community have considerable problems of access, security and service delivery. Here there is little evidence of a social contract between the people and state, even in those areas that are in close proximity to the provincial centre and contain larger landholdings with better access to irrigation.

This Report also stresses the need to look beyond the headline figures of cultivation for the country as a whole. Typically illicit drug crop cultivation occurs in a fragile political, socio-economic and environmental setting. As a result there is a delicate balance between efforts aimed at reducing the scale and nature of illicit drug crop cultivation and those aimed at broader state building and development. There is no doubt that progress in reducing opium poppy cultivation can have political and economic ramifications for the household, area and region. The report highlights that access to credit has become more problematic for the rural population in areas where opium poppy has typically been concentrated. It also suggests that where individuals lack access to legal livelihoods, eradication can damage (or even break) the nascent relationship between citizen and state. There are anti state elements that will no doubt seek to exploit any disaffection. The issuing of night letters by the Taliban encouraging opium poppy cultivation and offering protection against eradication are clear evidence of this. The wider impacts of sustaining low levels of opium poppy cultivation - in terms of economic growth, security and rural poverty - are currently unclear. Rural livelihoods in Afghanistan have proven resilient, enduring two decades of war and a prolonged drought. However, developments in the south illustrate how fragile the security situation is and shows how rapidly levels of opium poppy cultivation can expand where there is a security vacuum. A tempered approach informed by a detailed understanding of the socio-economic, political and environmental processes by which rural households move from illicit to licit livelihoods is required.