(Kandahar, Afghanistan) Climate change is jeopardizing the Taliban’s move away from opium and could have global repercussions.
Two years after the Taliban banned opium, Afghan farmers are discovering that some ancient crops no longer grow well in their country due to climate change, jeopardizing efforts to eradicate the poppy.
For decades, farmers in southern Afghanistan have relied on the opium poppy to make a living in this arid region. Even when prolonged drought dried up rivers and dried out fields, hardy poppies thrived.
The Taliban banned poppies for religious reasons after taking power in Afghanistan in 2021. But farmers say they are unable to make a living from wheat and cotton: the market has been flooded since the opium ban and prices have plummeted. Other major fruit and vegetable crops that once grew in the region — eggplants, pomegranates, apricots — have become difficult or impossible to grow because of harsh conditions, which Afghan researchers attribute to climate change.
Farmers abandon their fields. Others are considering returning to poppy or defying the ban.
“If they don’t break even, they will plant poppies again,” says Shams-u-Rahman Musa, a senior agriculture official in Kandahar for the Taliban government, who is aware of the farmers’ frustration: “We does everything we can to find solutions. »
If the transition from poppy to other crops fails, there could be consequences far beyond Afghanistan’s borders. According to the United Nations, Afghanistan was the world’s largest exporter of opium before the Taliban takeover, accounting for more than 80% of the world’s supply before production collapsed last year.
The government is now trying to identify possible crops in dry soil with high salt content. We have hopes for saffron and pistachio, but the choice of variety will be decisive. Afghanistan has asked other countries to find modified seeds strong enough to be grown there.
The decline in agricultural income is most pronounced in the south of the country, where two-thirds of Afghanistan’s opium poppy grew before the ban.
While average annual temperatures in Afghanistan have increased by 1.8°C over the past 50 years – twice the global average increase – the trend has been even steeper – 2.4°C – in the south of the country, according to the Afghan authorities.
Thanks to their deep roots, many fruit trees resisted heatwaves well. But the water table level in the Helmand River basin fell by 2.6 m on average between 2003 and 2021. According to several climate models, the situation will worsen over the coming decades. Winter precipitation, of utmost importance to farmers, is expected to decrease significantly in the south.
In the past, rain washed salt from fields, but soil salinity has increased due to prolonged drought in recent years. “The poppy grows well, but not much else,” observes Abdul Jalal, an irrigation official in Kandahar.
The poorest farmers are suffering the most. Ataullah Noorzai, a 30-year-old villager in Kandahar province, says his land has become so salty that he can only grow wheat and barley, which are less affected by salinity. But these crops bring in so little money that he has already borrowed 250 kg of wheat from a neighbour to sell at market and must find a way to repay the loan.
Some of his neighbors have managed to bring in fresh water through canals and wash away a lot of the salt, then plant pomegranates, a more profitable crop. It’s an expensive solution for Mr. Noorzai, who is clinging to the slim hope that heavy, sustained rains will wash away the salt.
According to Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban government, efforts are underway in all provinces to identify the most profitable alternative cereal and fruit crops.
At an experimental farm in Kandahar, the former US-backed government planted pomegranate trees to test their resistance to heat. Nearly 80 varieties are grown today between bullet-riddled blast walls.
But increasingly, this climate change strategy seems a lost cause. Some government officials say pomegranates are the solution of choice, because their deep roots give them a fighting chance of finding water. But Mr. Jalal, the local irrigation official, laments that they do not grow well in desert areas with high salinity.
Some initial successes now disappoint. The prolonged drought of recent years took its toll on the peach trees, which had to be cut down, and the experimental vines were burned by the sun, explains Mr. Jalal.
At first, the ban on opium seemed to succeed, but agricultural setbacks changed the situation. Last year, satellite images revealed that opium production fell by 99.9% in Helmand and 90% in Kandahar, once the cultivation heartland.
But in the provincial capitals of southern Afghanistan, there is now concern about the glut of wheat and cotton. Even before the current harvest, supply had already lowered prices.
This is causing tension in the markets of southern Afghanistan, but some are profiting from it. Afghan exports are booming, says Abdul Manan, a cotton trader in a Helmand market, smiling broadly.
But very quickly, he was attacked by farmers. ” Tell the truth ! “, they shout, ignoring the police officer responsible for following the Washington Post team.
“When I grew poppies, it was five times more profitable and much easier,” says Haji Wazir, 55, a farmer. “Today, we don’t even cover our expenses. »
Discontent against the poppy ban is also growing elsewhere in the country. In May, violent clashes broke out between opium producers and police in northeastern Afghanistan, where the Taliban are struggling to impose their authority. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, poppy cultivation in Badakhshan province decreased by only 56% between 2021 and last year.
At the same time, wealthy landowners who were able to store the poppy before the ban can now export it at much higher prices, increasing the frustration and anger of farmers.
Even among the Taliban responsible for imposing the ban on opium, there are beginning to have doubts, like Ahmad Jan Frotan, responsible for going from house to house looking for offenders in the province of Parwan, in the center of the Afghanistan: “I feel pity,” admits this 28-year-old police officer, who studied agriculture while fighting the Americans.
“People are short of money,” he said, urging the Taliban supreme leader to “work for all Afghans.”
According to Hayatullah Rouhani, head of the narcotics squad in Herat, Afghanistan’s second city, industrialization could replace revenues from opium.
Herat is an industrial hub and Rohani wants hundreds of factories to be built. “Each factory could employ 500 people, not just farmers, ex-drug addicts too.”
According to Afghan authorities, more than 10% of the population was using drugs when the Taliban took power in 2021. There are no more recent statistics, but few drug addicts are seen on the streets of Kabul, Herat and other cities. They were sent by the thousands to drug treatment centers.
One of them, in Herat, is reminiscent of a prison camp. Drug addicts watched by guards armed with sticks crowd into cramped buildings.
Mr. Rouhani was proud to explain that his residents learn to repair industrial equipment and mobile phones, with a view to the industrialization of the country. But like everywhere in Afghanistan, money is lacking, Mr. Rouhani complains, including for the swimming pool he hoped to build to help drug addicts recover.
“Unfortunately, the hot season is coming,” he says.