Antidote To Afghanistan’s Opium Addiction: Red Gold

 

Despite being contrarian to Islamic beliefs, opium production is one of the biggest industries for the war-torn country. Afghanistan alone is responsible for supplying more than 90 percent of the world’s opium, the raw material for manufacturing heroin to drug addicts all across the globe. Myanmar, trails in second place.

 

 

Despite being contrarian to Islamic beliefs, opium production is one of the biggest industries for the war-torn country. Afghanistan alone is responsible for supplying more than 90 percent of the world’s opium, the raw material for manufacturing heroin to drug addicts all across the globe. Myanmar, trails in second place.

Approximately 12 percent of the land in Afghanistan is arable, and almost 6 percent is used for growing poppy. Not only does this trade exacerbate a global drug crisis, is also one of the biggest reasons for the Taliban and other insurgent groups’ resilience in Afghanistan.

Related: Afghanistan is broke, U.S. drowning in debt – So what about a war ceiling?

It has been estimated that the Taliban reaps between $100 million and $400 million annually in illicit opium income, money that has fuelled their ability to purchase weapons, supplies, militants, and other instruments that aid their war cause. Research has also suggested that as many as 80 percent of personnel from the Ministry of Interior have benefitted from the drug trade, whether it be from transportation fees, bribes or profits.

Last year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that the country needed 400,000 Afghan soldiers and police to defend itself, and that works out to about US$10 billion annually. Afghanistan has a current budget of US$1.1 billion, of which US$400 million comes from foreign donors.

Though the opium trade amounts to nearly 30 percent of the Afghan gross domestic product (US$15 billion for 2010), it is unlikely to ever be legalized and therefore providing much valued tax revenue.

Find more Afghanistan related economic statistics from EconomyWatch’s Econ Stats database.

Coming up with alternative livelihoods for Afghanistan’s impoverished opium farmers is a huge challenge and until now, no one has been able to offer a viable and sustainable alternative. After all, opium farming is almost ideal: It does not require much irrigation, opium paste is non-perishable, there is certainly not need to scour for buyers, and it pays well.

Agriculture has been called the oil of Afghanistan. With at least 80 percent of Afghanistan’s workforce involved in agriculture, policymakers have labored hard to rehabilitate the farming sector. Saffron, the world’s dearest spice also known as Afghanistan’s “red gold” could become an antidote to Afghanistan’s opium addiction.

Dry climate makes Afghanistan one of the best saffron growing regions, with 300 hectares of land devoted to the prized flower in the Herat province alone. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, saffron is one of the three most important crops for the province of Herat.

Saffron is also a high-value crop. A kilogram of saffron stigma can fetch in US$2,000 to US$3,000, compared to US$90 for a kilogram of poppy. According to independent saffron producer M. Hashim Astami, saffron has the potential to generate an annual income of US$100 million for Herat alone, provided 5,000 to 7,000 hectares of land is devoted to its farming.

Also significant is the fact that one particular district in Herat now employs 480 female saffron producers. In just three years, membership in the Ghoryan Women Safffron Association leaped from 72 to 480 women.

However, the Institute for War & Peace Reporting reported late last year that insurgents are allegedly pressuring Herat farmers to switch to opium poppy in order to levy illicit revenues.

Mr. Bashir Ahmad Ahmadi of Herat’s agriculture department described what happened to the IWPR:

[quote] “The Italian Provincial Reconstruction Team had promised to provide farmers in Kushk-e Kohna and Rabat-e Sangi districts with seven tons of saffron bulb. When the bulbs were transported out of the district, the armed opposition set fire to the trucks and killed the drivers. The farmers had complained in the past that the armed opposition was threatening them over poppy cultivation, but no one ever expected anything like this to happen. The information we’ve received indicates that farmers don’t dare cultivate saffron in the province’s more remote and unstable districts because of Taliban influence.” [/quote]

In the same report, the IWPR reveals that the Taliban had claimed responsibility for the attacks:

[quote] “We will burn everything the infidels bring into the district. As long as my men and I live, I will not allow any resident to receive donations from foreigners, whether it be saffron or anything else.” [/quote]

Some analysts have suggested that the U.S. increase their efforts in buying back Afghan poppy fields, but senior Obama administration officials have bluntly said that U.S. efforts to eradicate Afghanistan’s poppy fields have failed.

Unfortunately, the economic behavior of the black market is counter-intuitive. If the supply of poppy fields in Afghanistan is artificially driven down, opium will become scarce and lead to a hyperinflation of its price in the black market. Given the irresistible profits involved, neighbouring countries would not hesitate to cash in from this illicit trade.

For the long-suffering Afghans, their prized “red gold” could most certainly be the antidote for their addiction to opium farming. But until the militant coercion is eradicated, it is unlikely to effect permanent sobriety.

As farmer Mohammad Musa aptly puts it, “If the government can’t protect farmers, it can’t tell us what to grow and what not to grow.”

Related: Drug Capitals of the World