Policy Paper: Fairly Trading the World's Timber 

By Lakshmi Kumaraswami

During spring and winter, many fields in Afghanistan bloom with white, red and lavender flowers. Attached to the stalks, which are usually two to four feet high, are green bulbous capsules. When the flowers dry up and the capsules start turning yellow, workers arrive to carry out a 2000-year-old ritual. They walk backwards from the end of the field and make precise cuts in the capsules, using sticks with three small blades attached. White latex oozes from the cuts, turning honey brown as it starts to harden.

This is the product of Afghanistan’s poppy harvest. The brown substance is opium, of which Afghanistan farmers produce 90 percent of the world’s supply. When trafficked across international borders and processed it becomes one of the most dangerous and illegal drugs in the world – heroin.

The Afghan government and the United Nations have been taking strong steps to eradicate poppy cultivation and have proclaimed some recent success. The efforts, combined with weather conditions, caused an opium blight in 2010, according to a January report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The relative scarcity of the product caused prices to increase by 164 percent. Now there is fear that the high prices will create an incentive for farmers to increase poppy cultivation.

In a press release, Yury Fedotov, executive director of UNODC, noted that rise in prices comes after a steady decline from 2005 to 2009. "We cannot continue business as usual,” the statement noted, “If this cash bonanza lasts, it could effectively reverse the hard-won gains of recent years.”

The report stated that prices went from $64 per kilogram in 2009 to $169 per kilogram in 2010. The price rose particularly in southern provinces, according to socio-economist. David Mansfield. His preliminary 2011 report for the Afghan Drugs and Justice Unit in the Foreign Office and the British Embassy Kabul stated that farm-gate prices of opium went from $33 to $44 per kilogram in November 2009 to $222 to $260 per kilogram in 2010.

The UNODC report said that weather conditions and alternative farming could deter provinces that have already stopped opium cultivation (nine out of 34), but others might increase their farming. The report pointed to a number of government success stories. Districts like Mehtarlam and Qarghai farmers are planting cucumber, leek, rice, celery, garlic, and cauliflower instead. The UNODC intends to add three more provinces to that list by the end of next year, leaving 22 provinces before complete eradication is obtained.

Tom Gregg, fellow and senior program coordinator of Center on International Cooperation's project in Afghanistan, said he thinks this goal in the near future is unrealistic. “It is like saying the U.S. will never get cocaine from Columbia ever again.” Gregg said that gathering data on opium production is not an exact science. “There is a large gray area on these figures, and with insecurity in the area getting reliable data is extremely complicated,” he said.

Paul Fishstein, a fellow with the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard, observed that while prices are up nationally, cultivation decisions are determined locally based on a range of factors, including security, extent of government control, and access to markets to sell non-opium crops.

One of the more obvious reasons for the increase in opium cultivation is the intimidating presence of the Taliban across some of the provinces. According to Mansfield's report, there has been an upswing in violence and increased Taliban presence in the rural parts of Balkh, Nangarhar and Langhman.

In places like Khogiani of the Nangarhar district, the Taliban is 'requesting' farmers to keep their sons from joining the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF), thereby encouraging them to focus on opium cultivation instead. “Pressure to leave the Afghan National Army (ANA) would have a significant impact on the local economy. Interviews with respondents who were either on leave or had absconded from combat duties in the south indicated they were hoping that a return to poppy cultivation would mean they would not need to return to the ANA,” said Mansfield.

However, Fishstein said that the Taliban is not entirely to blame for the increase. “While the opium economy clearly provides resources to the insurgency, it is very difficult to quantify or even estimate what percentage of their support is derived from narcotics; many observers believe that their funding sources are sufficiently diversified and that eliminating narcotics money would not by itself end the insurgency.” he said.

Taliban presence in an area does not necessarily mean an increase in poppy cultivation. Farmers in some areas of the Farah district, where the Taliban is still dominant, are cultivating the same amount of poppy as before. Mansfield stated that this was due to concerns over food security. “The current high price of opium means farmers can maintain current levels of cultivation of both poppy and licit crops to achieve food security and still have more cash for consumption than in the 2009/10 growing season,” he noted.

The inability of the Afghan government to successfully monitor provinces might push farmers to go back to opium cultivation. “Policy makers need to consider the factors that have led to growing instability, including the role that coerced bans on opium production and eradication have had on sections of the rural population and look for ways to better manage what can be conflicting policy choices,” said Mansfield. Gregg, of the Center for International Cooperation, also blamed the increase on corruption in the Afghan government and security force.

Additionally, the government has failed to rehabilitate former poppy cultivators. People in provinces like Helmland, might see a decrease in their quality of life this year due to the sudden lack of income. “Their major failing is not being able to establish a viable, alternative livelihood program. Even in 2003, in South East Afghanistan, [Afghan president Hamid] Karzai called on people to stop cultivating and people largely did – but it was more a call to nationalism, Islamic principles and Pashtunwali. He did not offer another livelihood in return,” said Gregg.

Sometimes, the government's eradication campaigns itself cause the instability. In April last year, elders from the Shirzad province rejected the ban on opium cultivation, stating that the destruction of the crop was during the late stage in the growing season. They also argued that the government failed to give the province development assistance.

According to Mansfield's report, unrest in the region began to die down in January this year, when the province's governor, Gula Aga Shirzai, threatened the elders with government and American intervention. 

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Lakshmi Kumaraswami is a student in the "International Newsroom" course at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Photo courtesy of flickr user Ian Britton.