Alternatives to Poppy Cultivation To reduce economic dependence on opium, the international development community and Afghan authorities have increasingly focused on strengthening and diversifying legal livelihoods. Initiatives ranged from attempts to find single-crop solutions (such as wheat, pomegranates, saffron, onions, or cotton) to more complex efforts at diversifying on-farm, off-farm, and non-farm income and building social safety nets. The effectiveness or even appropriateness of such measures heavily depends on the local socioeconomic, political, and security context. These efforts have made some progress even in select areas of those regions and provinces that have been central to Afghanistan’s opium economy—such as the south and the east—when certain factors applied. They include: relatively central locations close to urban centers; improved security; better access to markets; improved or expanded irrigation; the availability of government agricultural assistance; and access to diverse income opportunities, including non-farm cash-generating incomes. New crops have, for instance, been effectively introduced in the more fertile and accessible districts of Nangarhar. Another example is a major reduction in poppy cultivation in Central Helmand in 2008–2011, partly replaced by wheat and other crops.
These solutions, however, are not universally sustainable, especially in more remote and less secure areas, with limited or no access to markets and income opportunities. Farmers may temporarily increase cultivation of
Afghanistan has never had as much land under irrigation as it currently does. After ISAF withdraws, the Afghan government’s still fragile control of some of the poppy-growing provinces is likely to significantly weaken. This lack of state presence coupled with growing insecurity will impede licit economic opportunities and markets, while the significantly expanded arable and irrigated areas are likely to be diverted to poppy cultivation again. Location is a key factor in determining the cash-generating strategies of farmers. Nonpoppy growing households in areas in close proximity to markets, good transportation options, and with high consumer demand will have significantly more crop diversification. Where poppy has been abandoned for whatever reason, households with limited resources and without easy access to markets and transportation have to rely on non-farm income (such as wage labor and remittances) as there are simply few alternatives. The viability of non-farming, cash-generating jobs as an alternative to poppy farming is thus highly contingent on the region. One important implication is that, on a national scale, general economic reconstruction and development, including the growth of industrial, resource, and services sectors, may provide a more viable alternative to the opium economy than select context-specific substitution strategies related to agriculture alone. Another implication points to the harsh reality that, in many areas of sustained poppy cultivation and opium production in Afghanistan, more successful alternatives to poppy than either substitute crops or licit wages are alternative illicit/informal activities such as
Initiatives ranged from attempts to find single-crop solutions (such as wheat, pomegranates, saffron, onions, or cotton) to more complex efforts at diversifying on-farm, offfarm, and nonfarm income and building social safety nets.
EWI • AFGHAN narcotrafficking
While this reduction was largely stimulated by a general market-driven increase in wheat prices due to growing food insecurity, there were also other factors. A combination of crop diversification programs, growing development assistance, and increased state presence backed by upgraded government and international security support all contributed to reduction of poppy fields in areas south of the Boghra Canal, especially in rural areas close to urban centers.36 However, to become sustainable, areas that have seen progress must see investment in infrastructure, comprehensive rural development, and improved rule of law and order, which should go hand in hand with the increase in overall security and functional governance at the national and local levels.
licit crops under pressure from authorities, but fail to adopt complex or sustainable crop diversification. With no other viable income sources, including non-farming opportunities, farmers typically show signs of economic distress and adopt coping strategies that undermine their future earning capacity, including reducing the quality and quantity of food consumed, delaying health expenditure, selling productive assets, and failing to meet social obligations, such as marriage costs.37 Furthermore, in areas with no viable incomegenerating alternatives, a major decline in poppy cultivation (due to coercion, weather or other pressures) tends to create more insecurity, not less.
21