Abstract

In Tokyo in January 2002, the international community pledged over 4.5 billion dollars to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Both the international community and the Interim Administration for Afghanistan agreed that eliminating the cultivation and production of illicit drugs would be mainstreamed within this overall package of assistance. Earlier in the month the Interim Administration for Afghanistan banned opium poppy cultivation, and later, in April it conducted an extensive eradication campaign. With the establishment of the Transitional Administration, the development of a National Drugs Strategy and increasing levels of international assistance delivered on the ground, it is clear that a new policy environment has emerged in Afghanistan in which the goal of eliminating opium poppy cultivation can be addressed.

This Study explores the impact of this changing policy environment on households’ decisions to cultivate opium poppy. It is based on a series of 214 in-depth interviews conducted in 13 districts in Afghanistan during the planting season for the 2002/03 crop. Given the current paucity of data regarding Afghan rural livelihood strategies it is not possible to determine whether the findings of this work are truly ‘representative’. However, where possible the findings of this Study are cross-referenced with other fieldwork, including earlier reports in the United Nations Drug Control Programme’s (now the United Nations Office for Drug Control) Strategic Studies series.

The Study reports that, despite significant increases in the price of opium, overall the amount of opium poppy planted by those interviewed was expected to remain relatively stable in 2002/03 compared with the previous growing season. Wheat remains by far the most dominant crop even in districts where cultivating opium poppy has become entrenched. For those without accumulated debts and with good yields, the current opium price was a windfall that inspired an increase in conspicuous consumption in 2002. But, for those households with a high incidence of unpaid advances on opium amongst their accumulated debt, the dramatic increase in the price of opium since January 2001 has had little impact; many will need to repay this debt in-kind. Indeed, for the resource poor, opium poppy has had an inflationary effect, increasing levels of rent, marriage costs and the cost of borrowing. The result is a growing dependency on opium poppy cultivation as a means of survival.

The analysis suggests that high levels of household debt (much of it taken as advance payments on future opium crops) have led to a significant number of households committing themselves to opium production for a number of years. As long as households continue to rely on opium as their major source of rural credit, interventions intended to eliminate opium poppy cultivation will be severely constrained making any significant reductions difficult to maintain.

Feedback from local communities also reveals the increasingly desperate measures households resort to in order to repay their debts. Absconding (rarely seen in the late 1990s), the sale or lease of long-term productive assets, and the sale of daughters (some as young as 7) are amongst the responses of households to the increasing pressure to repay their debts. To guarantee repayment creditors were found to be using more authoritarian tactics including the kidnapping of daughters, the confiscation of domestic possessions, the compulsory purchase of land (at preferential rates), and pursuing absconding debtors across the border into Pakistan. The analysis suggests that the failure to repay outstanding loans (many repayable in opium) has become a major source of local conflict. In the face of high levels of accumulated debt, the frequency of defaulting and uncertainty over the government’s position on eradication, the Study suggests that lenders have adopted a more cautious approach to the provision of advances on the opium poppy crop this season.

Fieldwork reveals that knowledge of the government’s ban on opium poppy cultivation is comprehensive. It suggests that whilst last years eradication campaign has affected some households’ decisions to cultivate opium poppy in the 2002/03 growing season, its impact is both limited and uneven. The absence of alternative livelihoods and the continuing impact of the drought (in some areas), combined with the continuing role opium plays as a one of the only sources of informal credit, left most households with no alternative but to defy both the ban and any threat of eradication.

The overall conclusion is that there is a perception amongst households that they do not have alternatives to the cultivation of opium poppy. Only a small minority of households indicated that they would look to alternative crops or wage labour as a means of generating income or repaying loans. Whilst a number of development interventions have been implemented in the areas in which fieldwork was undertaken, many are single sector and short term initiatives that do not necessarily address the wider context in which opium poppy cultivation takes place. More broad-based and long term development programmes will be required to address the different motivations and factors that influence households in their decision to cultivate opium poppy.