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AFGHANISTAN: Poppy Fields Offer Jobs as Fighting Rages

Sher Ahmad Haidar and S. Muddassir Ali Shah*

GHAZNI, May 23 2007 (IPS) - While intense fighting rages around Afghanistan’s famed poppy fields in the south, thousands of poor, jobless youths have poured in to embattled Helmand province to lance the lush-green poppy bulbs that promise massive yields of opium this year.

Violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, has returned to levels not seen since the Taliban were ousted in end-2001. Daily militant attacks and ensuing air strikes by NATO and coalition war planes have claimed many civilian lives.

Still, thousands of impoverished farm workers from provinces neighbouring Helmand are working in the verdant, well-tended poppy farms that stretch for miles. An estimated 40 percent of Afghanistan’s poppy harvest is produced in Helmand and Kandahar.

According to the United Nations, about 400,000 acres are planted with opium this year. The crop is expected to yield more than 6,500 tonnes of opium. The export value, about 3.1 billion US dollars, is equivalent to roughly half the legal Afghan economy.

Nasrullah, an 18-year-old from Qarabagh, in Ghazni province, has spent three weeks in the poppy fields in the militancy-plagued Nad Ali district. But he is carrying on unconcerned. “Undoubtedly, Helmand is a volatile place but I am unemployed, and resource less. Here I have an opportunity to eke out a living with the harvest reaching its peak,” he explained.

As he gains in experience, Nasrullah’s wages have also increased. “We are a group of 23 youths working five-hour shifts. Our meals are paid for. Each of us earns 800 Afghanis (roughly 16 dollars) a day,” he said. “Not a bad deal for someone so hard up,” he grinned.

Gul Muhammad from Mullah Nooh village in Ghazni’s Andar district has been collecting the sap from the poppy bulbs for a month. The 30-year-old told the independent Pajhwok Afghan News that abject poverty has driven him into an area where deadly clashes and bombings are a routine occurrence.

“Being the sole breadwinner of a family of 18, I have to toil continually. Over the last 20 days, I have earned 18,000 Afghanis (360 dollars) – perforating the poppy bulbs and collecting the gum the moment it solidifies,” he said.

According to the farm worker, the terms of unemployment are very favourable this year. ” I had come here last year too but the situation is hugely different this time around,” he confided. “Farmers, who came to Andar and adjoining areas in search of field workers, promised most attractive remuneration to so many youngsters.”

A Ghazni-based shopkeeper said he sent 30 youths to Helmand after receiving sworn guarantees for their safety from the growers. “I was worried about the worsening security situation,” explained Said Muhammad.

The only complaint that has come from the workers is against the security forces. They accuse them of exploiting their financial vulnerability, and demanding bribes from the growers to leave their fields alone.

A resident of Waghaz, Abdul Ghafoor accused security personnel of extorting 500 Afghanis (10 dollars) for every daily wage worker that a farmer has hired.

Opium production has been outlawed in Afghanistan. The government has attempted to stop narcotics trafficking by uprooting fields of opium, but last year’s harvest was a 59 percent rise over the previous season. In eastern Nangarhar province, poppy farmers used guns to defend the plants that feed their families.

While Afghan and UN officials claim that poppy fields are eradicated by hand, eyewitnesses in Nangarhar and Kunar, another eastern province, have reported seeing aircraft spraying poppy fields in 2004. According to news reports, doctors there ascribed a sudden outbreak of respiratory ailments and skin diseases to a ‘mysterious’ chemical they were unable to identify. However, there was no official confirmation.

What has been of much more concern is the serious problem of drug addiction both in Afghanistan and abroad. According to conservative figures, close to a million Afghans are hooked to heroin.

The Central Asian country has acquired notoriety as the source of two thirds of the world’s opium. About 95 percent of British heroin comes from Afghanistan. But the most vulnerable are the countries bordering the poppy fields: Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. These are host to the world’s fastest growing AIDS epidemics from intravenous drug use, according to the United Nations.

Dr Ahmad Shah Amarkhel, in charge of the detoxification centre at the Ghazni Public Health Department, argues that poppy farmers and workers are equally at risk of drug dependency. Roughly 2,000 drug addicts visited the detoxification centre last year.

“For jobless youngsters, this (poppy fields) is not a safe working environment,” he said. “We ought to provide them with alternative sources of work to rid our society of the narcotics curse,” he added.

Nasrullah, the teenage farm worker from Ghazni province, is dismissive of the doctor’s fears. He says he hates the “nasty” smell of the toxic substance, and cannot think of becoming an addict. “Like my friends, and other people here, I am in Helmand in search of a livelihood – nothing else.” (*Released under agreement with Pajhwok Afghan News)