Abstract

Initial fieldwork in Qandahar in late 1997 revealed that a significant number of households obtained advance payments, known as salaam, on their future opium production. Those households with little or no land, indicated that this credit was essential to meeting their basic needs during the winter months, a time of food shortage for many Afghan households. Indeed, it was a common claim that a ban on opium cultivation in the target districts would prompt many of those households without land to relocate to neighbouring areas where they could cultivate opium and thereby continue to obtain salaam.

Further fieldwork suggested that other commodities, including agricultural inputs, could be purchased on credit. Respondents indicated that lenders had a preference for those who cultivated opium poppy.

Recognising that the existing informal credit systems in Afghanistan possibly gave preferential access to those households that cultivate opium poppy, and coopted more vulnerable households into opium poppy cultivation, UNDCP sought to verify these initial findings with more in-depth research in the target districts of Ghorak, Khakrez, Maiwand and Shinwar. To verify findings and distinguish between generic patterns and localised issues, in-depth interviews were conducted over a wide geographical area with respondents from the different socio-economic groups within each district.