Abstract

Levels of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan’s provinces and districts rise and fall depending on a range of factors that are not well understood. Declines in cultivation are often attributed to the political commitment of the provincial and local authorities and the role of information campaigns, while the underlying power and economic dynamics that drive these changes receive little attention. Claims of success in reducing the area under cultivation in some areas during 2006-07 fail to account for how households have substituted the role played by opium poppy in the household economy.

In the north-eastern province of Badakhshan, recent overall declines in the area under cultivation show that reductions can be achieved when the right economic conditions prevail. But these successes are largely limited to areas with good market access. In the west-central province of Ghor, where the risk of food insecurity is high, factors such as low yields, low opium prices and high wage labour have served to raise the opportunity cost of opium poppy cultivation, leading farmers to dedicate considerably less land to opium poppy even without government action. In the northern province of Balkh, the sharp decline in cultivated area has been a result of coercion rather than economics, though lower prices may have made this more palatable for cultivators. Finally, in Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan, the sharp decline in cultivated area that occurred in 2004-05 has not proved durable.

Understanding changing levels of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan requires recognition of the multifunctional role of opium poppy cultivation in the livelihoods of rural Afghan households. The majority of Afghanistan’s rural population lives under conditions of acute risk and insecurity, and gain welfare and human security primarily through informal means. Opium poppy - a low-risk crop in a high-risk environment - has provided the critical mechanism through which many households have been able to access security and welfare. This informal security regime, however, ties poor cultivators into deep patron-client relations marked by hierarchy and power inequality. By providing patronage and protection at a price, key power holders both within and outside government and at both district and provincial levels in effect trade "opium poppy cultivation" as a commodity.

These key power holders are able to elicit shortterm reductions in cultivation using a combination of coercion, deals with local power brokers and traders, and promises of development assistance. Balkh is the latest in a long line of provinces to use this method to achieve dramatic reductions in area devoted to opium poppy. Yet the experience in Nangarhar in 2004-05 and 2006-07, and the other provinces prior to this period, shows that such reductions tend to be temporary. Ultimately, the depletion of income and assets that households experience as a result of such dramatic reductions in opium poppy cultivation leads to a shift in the political consensus. When a critical mass of households experience growing economic crisis, political leaders - no matter how much power and influence they claim or foreigners attempt to bestow upon them - have to accept the inevitable return of more widespread opium poppy cultivation or face the potential loss of their political power, if not their life.

Nonetheless, these dramatic reductions in cultivation, if pursued only in the short term, can be a win-win situation for key power holders. The political leadership of a province or district can take credit for reductions in cultivation notwithstanding the prevailing economic circumstances, which are often forgotten or not analysed. Thus political leaders may gain acclaim from both national and international actors, and if development assistance is forthcoming they may even receive political credit from the people of the province or district. If cultivation subsequently resumes or increases, these power holders blame it on the failure of the international community and the Afghan government to deliver the necessary economic development in sufficient time.

Development agencies operating within this context are generally unable to generate sufficient economic activity over a short period of time to meet the shortfall in income and access to assets that result from the decrease in opium poppy cultivation. Development interventions take years, not a single growing season, to generate income and public goods.

In the absence of countervailing economic activity that replaces lost income and access to assets and maintains household security and well-being, rural populations have begun to show increasing antipathy for counter narcotics efforts. Complaints are proliferating among these populations that their immediate priorities - security, employment and reduced corruption - are not being addressed, and that the international community and the government are giving priority to resolving the primarily Western problem of drug consumption by destroying the crops of Afghan farmers, and with it their welfare and income security. This conviction has fuelled questions about the priorities of the international community and the Afghan government.

The view that the government is willing to deepen the poverty of some of its rural population for the sake of a ban on opium poppy cultivation further alienates the rural population. The belief of many farmers that those enforcing the ban and eradicating their crop are themselves actively involved in the opium trade makes matters worse; so does the perception of widespread bribery and the sense that eradication targets the vulnerable and ignores the crops of those in positions of power and influence. These views have led some segments of the rural population to withdraw their support of the government and others to openly oppose it. In Nangarhar, for example, there are emerging signs of farmers opposing the government and instead seeking the support and protection of anti-government insurgents. At the start of the 2007-08 planting season, evidence from the field suggests that avoiding further exacerbation of insecurity in rural Afghanistan requires careful balancing of reductions in opium poppy cultivation, security measures, governance and economic growth. Most importantly, counter narcotics efforts must not undermine the longer-term goal of a "prosperous and stable Afghanistan".