Afghan opium production predicted
to reach new high
Despite being outlawed by the Afghan government, opium
poppy cultivation has expanded rapidly since 2001. Pierre-Arnaud
Chouvy examines the dynamics behind the increase, and the
impact of opium cultivation on stability in the country.
Afghanistan’s opium production is expected to exceed
1999’s record high of 4,581 tons in 2004. Sources in
the US administration and the UK Foreign Office have reported,
ahead of the forthcoming UN Afghanistan Annual Opium Survey,
that farmers will produce between 5,400 and 7,200 tonnes of
opium in 2004, depending on total acreage and average yields.
The opium economy has now been outlawed by a fatwa signed
by Afghanistan's Council of Ulemas in August 2004, which reinforced
the ban pronounced by the Afghan transition government of
Hamid Karzai on 17 January 2002.
However, opium production is clearly rising in Afghanistan,
as opium poppy cultivation has spread to new provinces and
districts across the country. It should be noted, however,
that what has been widely presented as a major expansion of
production in 2002 and 2003 consists mainly of a restoration
of previous normal levels of production.
Although it is clear that the opium trade has a destabilising
effect in the country it is argued by some that the opium
economy, because of its importance for the resource-poor,
should not be wiped out precipitately or without compensation.
As noted by Frank Kenefick and Larry Morgan in Opium in
Afghanistan: People and Poppies, the Good Evil 
(2004) “the growing of opium poppies in Afghanistan
can be viewed, as an interim measure, as beneficial in many
respects”.
The authors argue that “the production of opium poppy
has created paying jobs (perhaps 30 million person-days of
work annually) for at-risk Afghans, pumped needed money into
the rural economy, helped to lower rural debt burdens, and
provided resource flows for rebuilding the homes and rural
asset bases that no External Donors’ assistance could
have executed”.
Opium production since 2001
Several factors have favoured the rapid restoration of opium
production since the Taliban prohibition. Prior to 2004 at
least, the US largely condoned opiates production both in
areas traditionally controlled by the Northern Alliance, for
example in Badakhshan, and in areas held by local commanders
whose support was deemed strategically necessary to fight
the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Before 2003, when opium came to be denounced as the greatest
threat to Afghanistan’s stability, peace and forthcoming
democracy, the US had been less interested in waging the ‘war
on drugs’ than in using drug traffickers and affiliated
warlords as allies to support its short-term Afghan strategy.
In doing so, the US re-enacted a strategy largely used during
the Cold War, notably in Afghanistan.
Had the US cracked down on opium production and drug traffickers
during its new war on terrorism in Afghanistan, it would have
alienated intelligence sources and strategic allies in the
country. Clearly, pursuing and arresting Al-Qaeda and Taliban
leaders has been a goal of considerably superior political
and strategic value than dealing with the issue of the drug
economy. However, renewed drug production is now denounced
as being a major threat to the fostering of democracy and
stability in Afghanistan. Indeed, the trade is increasing
the wealth and power of local warlords – many of them
former allies of the US-led war on terrorism – who are
reluctant to submit themselves to the authority of a central
government that they do not always recognise as legitimate
or independent of foreign influence.
Equally seriously, the opium economy also partly funds –
though it is not clear to what extent – opposition groups,
such as the remnant Taliban movement and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s
Hezb-i-Islami, that are attempting to disrupt the national
election scheduled for 9 October 2004.
Ironically, it was the ousting of the Taliban, immediately
after their successful 2000/01 prohibition on cultivation,
that has made such a resurgence possible and the magnitude
of the increase in production can be partly attributed to
the economic consequences of the ban itself, which was almost
certainly economically and politically unsustainable.
Opium and Al-Qaeda
Facing a deteriorating security situation and with the 3,600
tonnes of opium produced in 2003 likely to be surpassed in
2004, concerns have been rife that the country is on the verge
of becoming a ‘narco-state’ — a state ruled
mainly through, and in favour of, the development of a drug
economy — and succumbing to ‘narco-terrorism’,
particularly with regard to funding for Al-Qaeda. However,
evidence that links Al-Qaeda directly to the drug economy
is scarce.
Mirwais Yasini, the head of Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics
Directorate, who estimates that the Taliban and its allies
derived more than US$150m from drugs in 2003, has said there
are “central linkages” between drug traffickers,
Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden. However, the US commission
investigating the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US noted:
“The US government still has not determined with any
precision how much Al-Qaeda raises or from whom, or how it
spends its money.” It also stated that there is “no
substantial evidence that Al-Qaeda played a major role in
the drug trade or relied on it as an important source of revenue
either before or after 11 September 2001” 
.
Should Al-Qaeda really be involved in the opium economy in
Afghanistan, it would not be at the production level but higher
up in the chain of drug processing and trafficking, most likely
to protect heroin laboratories and trafficking caravans. As
for where the money generated from drug production and trafficking
goes, it has always been divided iniquitously, among farmers
who receive the smallest share, producers, warlords who condone
or encourage production in their territory, and local and
regional traffickers — who get the biggest share.
If Al-Qaeda’s alleged involvement in the drug trade
is real, it is something that developed only after the ousting
of the Taliban who levied Islamic taxes on the opium trade.
It should be noted that it was the Taliban who benefited from
Al-Qaeda’s funding and not the opposite. Indeed, as
stated by the 11 September 2001 commission, “prior to
11 September 2001 the largest single Al-Qaeda expense was
support for the Taliban, estimated at about $20m per year”.
Observers estimate that the drug trade was the Taliban’s
second largest source of revenue, estimated at $80m to $100m
in 1999, after finance from the trade and smuggling of consumer
goods. The same commission declared that “intelligence
collection efforts have failed to corroborate rumours of current
narcotic trafficking. In fact, there is compelling evidence
the Al-Qaeda leadership does not like or trust those who today
control the drug trade in Southwest Asia and has encouraged
its members not to get involved”.
Rensselaer Lee, a long time observer of global drug trafficking,
has also dismissed speculation that Al-Qaeda draws tens of
millions of dollars from the drug trade, arguing recently
in the Baltimore Sun
that “narcotics traffickers are not natural allies of
Al-Qaeda's Islamic warriors”.
The value of Opium
That the drug trade plays a significant role in perpetuating
instability in Afghanistan is well understood. However, the
opium trade is also vital for Afghanistan’s broader
economy since it generates farmer and trafficker income that
is estimated to equal half of the country’s legitimate
gross domestic product (GDP). On the one hand, the war economy
has favoured the growth of the drug economy and opium trafficking
has given warlords the means to perpetuate conflict. But,
on the other hand, the opium economy has made survival possible
for many farmers and contributed a great deal to the overall
country’s economy. Hence, to some extent, the opium
economy has helped stabilise a country coming out of over
two decades of war and facing a derelict economy.
In recent Afghan history, opium poppy cultivation has been
fairly regular, ranging from 54,000 to 80,000 hectares and
depending mostly on climatic factors. As for the 91,000 and
the 8,000 hectares harvested respectively in 1999 and 2001,
yielding 4,581 and 185 tonnes of opium, they clearly stand
out as statistical extremes and exceptions. However, while
both occurred under the Taliban rule, only the second (185
tons/8,000 hectares) can be clearly attributed to a political
decision, that of Taliban-imposed opium suppression, and not
to economic or climatic factors. However, the Taliban prohibition
has had consequences for today’s production (quick restoration
and, most likely, increase) that should be remembered before
any other similar ban — enforced hastily and without
compensative income available for the resource-poor —
is planned.
Until 2000, Taliban policies were influenced by a combination
of internal and external factors, many of which are still
prevalent today. On the internal level, Afghanistan's socio-economic
situation made, and still makes, opium production one of the
only means of providing access to land, labour and credit
for many of its farmers, most of whom are either tenants or
sharecroppers. The Afghan peasantry’s heavy dependence
upon opium production, associated with politico-territorial
realities of a tribal society with fragile political allegiances,
prevented the Taliban from making any attempts at eradication
during their few years in power. Abdul Rashid, the director
of drug control for Kandahar province in 1997 said at the
time that, at least without external aid, it was “simply
not possible to eradicate the poppy without alienating the
farmers”. Nevertheless, the Taliban banned opium production
in 2000, either to secure international support or, as some
have speculated, to drive opium prices up to benefit from
additional income. The move was unexpected and extremely successful,
at least in the short term, as only 185 tonnes were harvested
in 2001, much less than the 3,276 tonnes of 2000. Moreover,
only 35 out of the overall 185 tonnes was effectively harvested
across Taliban-held territory. The rest came from northern
areas controlled by the United Front, notably from Badakhshan.
The 2002 restoration of opium production to pre-ban levels
(3,400 tonnes) suggests that the Taliban prohibition was most
likely politically and economically unsustainable without
strong international aid. Factors in the micro-level economics
of opium production in Afghanistan even suggest that the Taliban
prohibition made the renewal of production at increased levels
an imperative. Under the salaam loan system, Afghan peasants
without capital traditionally borrow important sums or benefit
from advances against takings: their opium crops are thus
sold one or two years in advance at half the price of their
value. This credit system, the only available in the country,
keeps many farmers in debt at the same time as it makes their
survival possible. But when climatic conditions or an enforced
ban diminish or even destroy the opium crops, their unpaid
debts grow. As was shown by a few close observers of Afghan
opium production, the Taliban prohibition thus deeply affected
the payment of the farmers’ debt. Once the prohibition
was lifted, after the ousting of the Taliban, opium farmers
immediately resumed cultivating poppy at increased levels
in order to repay the accumulated debt.
In many provinces and districts, poor farmers survive mainly
from the salaam system and, in many areas opium is the only
crop that will be accepted in exchange for a loan. Moreover,
opium not only provides access to credit but also to land.
As shown by David Mansfield in The Economic Superiority
of Illicit Drug production: Myth and Reality 
(2001), while landless peasants, a majority in Afghanistan,
must resort to tenancy or sharecropping, landowners have increasingly
adapted the price of their lease to that of the most attractive
crop: opium. However, that opium poppy cultivation became
increasingly entrenched into micro-level Afghan economics
and that the opium economy recently came to equal half of
Afghanistan’s legitimate GDP does not mean that the
country is on the verge of becoming a ‘narco-state’.
First, opium poppy cultivation is not widespread. In 2003,
for example, opium poppy cultivation covered only one per
cent of total arable land and less than three per cent of
irrigated arable land. Opium poppy cultivation is prevalent
in areas where land holdings are small (such as where wheat
cultivation alone does not provide enough for a tenant’s
family), where irrigation is problematic and where access
to markets is especially difficult.
Mansfield explains also that “the proportion of household
land dedicated to opium poppy in Afghanistan rarely exceeds
70 per cent and that mono-cropping is particularly infrequent”.
Afghanistan thus seems to be a country that is not taking
full advantage of its potential for opium production, rather
than one on its way to become a ‘narco-state’.
Nation- and state-building is only beginning in Afghanistan
and its economy is only just starting to recover from over
two decades of war and internal feuding. Thus, a growing legal
economy will most likely drive up the price of hired labour,
something that will in turn make opium harvests increasingly
expensive and opium farming economically less attractive.
There is hardly any doubt that the country’s legal economy
will grow considerably and that it will make the share of
the opium economy smaller, thus removing the danger of Afghanistan
turning into a “narco-state”.
Dr Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy is research fellow
at CNRS,
France. He studies the geopolitics of illicit drugs in Asia.
His last book is Yaa
Baa. Production, Traffic, and Consumption of Methamphetamine
in Mainland Southeast Asia, published in September 2004
by Singapore University Press. For more information on his
work and other publications, visit www.geopium.org.
