What are they smoking?
Daniel Korski 9:59am
In the midst of all the doom and gloom coming from Afghanistan, the UN has published a report saying that there had been a 22 percent decrease in poppy cultivation in the country and a 33 percent reduction in Helmand alone. The number of “poppy free” provinces has also increased from 18 to 20. The UN called this “undeniable progress” and a “dramatic turn. Desperate for good news, the FCO welcomed “this progress” and credited Helmand Governor Gulab Mangal for giving “people a real alternative to drugs and the Taliban.”
No doubt Governor Mangal did his best, alongside Gul Agha Sherzai of Nangarhar province, which in the past used to be one of the country’s main opium hubs. But, according to the UN, the real reason for the drop in cultivation has been due to overproduction and a corresponding drop in worldwide opium prices relative to other crops like wheat.
There are also plenty of reasons to worry about future trends, which the UN report concedes albeit obliquely. Though the area under cultivation has dropped down to 123,000 hectares from a peak of 193,000 ha in 2007, it is still a long way from the 7-8000 hectares used for opium cultivation in 2001. The UN report also acknowledges that the farmers are getting better at cultivating the illegal crop. While land use is down 22 percent, production is down only ten percent, because farmers now produce 15 percent more opium resin from poppies. This year, Afghan poppies yielded 56 kg of opium per hectare, which is a 15 percent increase over 2008 and five times more than what opium farmers yield in the Golden Triangle of South-east Asia.
And, while the UN and the FCO like to talk about of “poppy free” provinces, they are nothing of the sort. Traders in these provinces have moved up the value chain – in other words, from cultivation to processing – or into cannabis.
In the provinces where cultivation still takes place, the basic incentives for farmers – rich, poor or indebted – has not yet changed. Growing opium remains an attractive move for many farmers because of the crops’ price, durability, and the economic system set up by the narcotics networks, which bring seeds to the farm gate, provide agricultural advice and pick up the harvested crop – thus saving the farmer the dangerous trip to the market to sell the harvest.
Finally, there is no sign that the Afghan government, despite millions of pounds spent on police assistance, is willing or able to prosecute high-level drug lords. As a result, the war-torn country now has its very own politically-connected drug cartels, who live in a "marriage of convenience" with anti-government insurgents who, in turn, have gone from merely taxing opium-growing in areas they control (which they have done for years), but are now working with criminal gangs and corrupt officials to produce, process, stock, and export opium.
So, it may not be time to celebrate this year’s drop in opium cultivation just yet. Afghan drugs still represents the country’s biggest economic activity, and one which funds criminals, insurgents, and terrorists in Afghanistan and abroad.
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RobertD
September 3rd, 2009 10:50am Report this commentSounds like we have to get back to the boring and difficult task of reducing the demand for heroin and smashing the international distribution networks. Failing that how about setting up a UN/ NATO / Afgan government sponsored purchase of the crop and legalised and controlled distribution to both give the Afgan farmers some income and cut the crimial middlemen out of the distribution system. An aggressive approach at both ends of the supply chain might take some of the funding and power out of the terrorists hands and simplify the security and political process in Afganistan.
Unfortunately pragmatic solutions have little hope against slogan based government in the west.
Austin Barry
September 3rd, 2009 11:05am Report this commentI just don't get it.
Our troops are dying to prop-up a corrupt, mysogynistic, drugocracy on the basis that doing so will make our streets safe from terrorists - presumably not the ones who hail from Pakistan, Somalia, Algeria, Libya, Tipton and Luton.
What utter, unmitigated rot.
Jon
September 3rd, 2009 11:26am Report this commentOr, we could buy the Afgan's crops to fill the worldwide medical opiate shortage...?
Kill several birds with one stone there - provide an honest income for the Afghans; remove a wholesale supply of heroin from the world market; increase the stocks of medical opiates.
A win, win, win situation... it'll never work.
Minnie Ovens
September 3rd, 2009 12:23pm Report this commentWe might be forgiven for thinking that several of Mr Korski's past articles were written while enjoying Afghanistan's favourite crop but I am pleased to see a bit of healthy cynicism entering the latest.
Bravo, and so good to see the free enterprise system is alive and well in that country.
After all nothing else is.
The Laughing Cavalier
September 3rd, 2009 12:38pm Report this commentHere in the UK we have a shortage of medical grade morphine while opium-based street corner drugs have neve been cheaper. Only in NuLabour land ...
Buying the crop would not be easy but surely it has to be a more positive way of dealing with the problem than destroying livelihoods and alienating the very people we need to win over.
The Welsh Jacobite
September 3rd, 2009 4:23pm Report this commentThe fundamental problem is that the Taliban "tax" any convenient economic activity in areas where they have influence (the possibility that they may currently be more actively involved in the poppy/opium/heroin trade is a bit of a red herring). As long as there is economic activity, and as long as they have influence over parts of Afghanistan, they will have access to funding.
If we buy up the poppy crop, they will still tax its producers. If poppy is eliminated they will tax wheat or other replacement crops.
If we provide aid, they tax it. If we (or indeed other Afghans) fund reconstruction work and invest in infrastructure, they tax this.
Access to funding is as much a consequence of Taliban success as a precondition for it. They are benefiting from a virtuous spiral in their favour. Their control of various areas provides them with the revenue they need to hold those areas and to fund their expansion into new ones.
If we are to leverage economics against the Taliban there needs to be a proper, fully resourced Economic Warfare effort. Holbrooke's declared intention of adding a member of the Treasury Department to his staff to pursue the question of Taliban funding is laughable in its inadequacy.
Verity
September 4th, 2009 6:07pm Report this comment"What are they smoking?" Nice old hippies Eighties headline, Daniel Korski.
In today's climate, it would be, "WHAT? Are they smoking?"
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