Afghanistan Peace CampaignAfghanistan Analysts Network
Things took a different turn last year when the lax application of the poppy growing ban in Badakhshan became too obvious for the IEA to continue to turn a blind eye to. By then, the province had become the runaway leader in opium production, with nearly 60 per cent of the area under cultivation. An eradication campaign, launched there in the spring-summer of 2024, met with strong resistance by locals and resulted in several casualties on both sides. Despite this, the example of Badakhshan had already been noted by many impoverished farmers across Afghanistan and the ongoing economic crisis has rekindled interest in a cash crop that is of unique value to farmers.[2] This is the case for the province traditionally at the centre of Afghanistan’s opiate production, Helmand in the southwest.
Long established as the country’s major producer, from the 1990s onwards, Helmand has seen its agricultural, economic and even political features mainly shaped by the production of opiates. It has been synonymous with the opium industry for most of Afghanistan’s recent history, and its political leaders – whether supporting or opposing the Taliban – have primarily issued from a milieu involved in the illicit economy. Afghan farmers in the south have also devised new ways to circumvent the ban. For example, as recently documented by AAN, there is a trend of farmers from the south of Afghanistan moving to Pakistani Baluchistan to grow poppy there.[3]
AAN spoke to locals in the southwest and northeast regions between late March and early June. Interviewees confirmed that poppy cultivation continues, due to the inability or unwillingness of local IEA authorities to completely stop it. However, to lower the risk of encountering government eradication efforts, some farmers have pursued more secretive methods of cultivation. These include hiding the poppy amidst other crops or inside walled plots of land, as well as moving to new, remoter areas and renting land there to cultivate poppies or have locals work the land as sharecroppers. Interviewees thought some officials, aware of the economic importance of poppy locally, turned a blind eye to such cultivation. A major factor behind poppy cultivation and opiate production might also be the unprecedented post-ban increase in prices – driven by the ban on cultivation – which makes poppy an ever-profitable business.
The northeast
Badakhshan has been at the centre of opium cultivation and production since the IEA began enforcing its ban. After the deadly clashes and widespread media attention last summer, the province was expected to become the main battleground this year if the IEA was to become serious about enforcing the ban nationwide. Indeed, at the end of May, some eradication attempts led to clashes between IEA forces and local farmers, such as in Jorm district (Azadi Radio).
AAN conducted five interviews with farmers and others in Badakhshan in early May, just before the start of the harvest. This mountainous province typically sows opium poppy in autumn and harvests it in June and July, depending on the specific area. Rainfed fields located at higher altitudes are usually sown in early spring. In the past, they comprised a relatively small part of the crop compared to those at lower altitudes, but things may be changing now, due to the need to safeguard poppy fields from the threat of eradication.
The interviewees were clear that hard-pressed Badakhshi farmers were neither willing nor able to give up poppy cultivation and comply with the IEA ban. Also, they reported that the Taliban authorities, at least at the local level, were not keen to enforce it. A local Taliban commander from Argu district, one of the hotspots of opium production in the province, gave this sober overview:
[This year], land located along the roads and near the main Takhar-Badakhshan highways has largely not been cultivated with poppy. However, in more secluded areas – such as gardens, inside private compounds, or house yards – poppy has been grown. In areas farther from the roads, cultivation continued as usual. In some parts, it’s slightly decreased, while in others it’s increased. Overall, there’s been no decrease in the level of cultivation.
He said that people in his district “do not trust the promises made by the Taliban,” namely, they do not trust that they will receive the aid that was promised if they did not sell poppy:
Last year, they were told that alternative crops would be supported, but this never happened and the community now sees it as a deception. This year, the Taliban said there was no foreign aid, the Islamic Emirate was facing a budget deficit and there would be no support for alternatives.
The commander’s words were echoed by Shafiqullah, a landowner from Khash district:
In response [to the provincial IEA authorities’ exhortations to comply with the ban], the people explained that Khash district has very little agricultural land, no mines, no alternative economic activity like livestock or poultry farms, no government aid or public services. They said that marijuana and poppy cultivation are their only means of survival. They also said that if an alternative is provided, they’d stop growing poppy. The governor promised to pass this message on to the leadership in Kabul, saying support would be arranged. But after waiting a full year, no help or response came, so people have continued cultivating poppy as before.
Many locals were, however, expecting a tougher stance on eradication from the IEA this year, if for no other reason than the great media attention and the very credibility of the ban being at stake. Some farmers decided to act more cautiously and sought to hide their crops, such as Azizullah, a landowner from Yaftal-e Payen district, which is close to the provincial capital, Faizabad:
Last year, I cultivated about three acres [1 acre = 2 jeribs = 0.4 hectares] of poppy. Although my land wasn’t targeted for eradication, I decided to reduce my cultivation this year out of caution. I sowed poppy on less than two acres, which includes a large garden area, a yard and a compound surrounded by walls. In the compound, I recently planted fruit trees, which are still young, and in between them, I sowed poppy. The local Taliban commanders’ affiliates don’t bother us, and the likelihood of interference from Taliban outside the area is low. Other landowners in the area have followed a similar approach, reducing their cultivation slightly this year.
Reducing the risk of eradication by spatially limiting cultivation has meant that remote areas are now being sought. While it is difficult to envisage that opium production hotspots, such as Argu or Darayem districts, will cease cultivation, poppy growing has now expanded to districts where it was previously only marginally practised. One such place is Shahr-e Bozorg district on the border with Takhar province and Tajikistan, where cultivation increased. In this district, eradication has never taken place – neither during the Republic nor under the Taliban – mainly because of the area’s mountainous terrain, lack of proper roads and difficult access, according to local farmer Zamanullah: “Only recently, this year, was a new road built – for the purpose of gold extraction.” He said that some areas near or along the new road had been cultivated, but most of the villages where poppy is grown are in remote places that are difficult to access:
The amount of opium cultivation depends on how much land a person owns. Some people have cultivated three to four acres, while others have sown less. Most of the cultivation happens on non-irrigated, rainfed land, while a smaller portion is grown on irrigated fields. Shahr-e Bozorg has less agricultural land compared to other districts like Argu, Darayem, Keshm, Teshkan and Yaftal. Because of this and the lack of road access, eradication is still very unlikely.
Shahr-e Bozorg was, for a long time, a forgotten spot off the main road, but has recently been the target of IEA attention because of the presence of gold mines there, the exploitation of which triggered competition between pre-existing local networks and new players more connected to the central IEA. The penetration of external economic interests and political control, said Zamanullah, may have exacerbated the tensions over poppy eradication:
In these [remoter areas of Shahr-e Bozorg], there are only a few local Taliban and they aren’t even considered fully loyal to the main Taliban leadership. These local Taliban generally support the people. They are unhappy with the central Taliban, especially in matters like opium cultivation, mineral extraction and other local issues. They are standing with the people on these matters. Across many districts, local Taliban have instructed and advised people to arm themselves. … If the pressure grows further, if mines are taken over and poppy eradicated, there’s a strong possibility of an armed uprising across the province.
This was confirmed by the local Taliban commander from Argu: “All the local Taliban in Badakhshan province are against the eradication efforts and aren’t supporting them, except the managers of the Counter-Narcotics departments at the provincial and district levels.”
The IEA recently deployed security forces from other provinces to Badakhshan. “Around 800 armed personnel from other provinces have been deployed, 400 from Kandahar and Helmand and another 400 from Kunduz and Takhar,” the Argu Taliban commander said. Many of them, especially those from Helmand and Kandahar provinces, do not speak the local language and are unfamiliar with the region’s culture. He said: “They use force and violence against the locals.” According to him, about “two hundred outsiders” sent to Qochi and Antin Jilaw villages of Argu district for eradication operations “have faced strong resistance from the local population and haven’t succeeded in destroying the poppy fields. However, they arrested around thirty local landowners and residents and took them to the provincial centre.” He also said that local people across the province were expecting the worst and bracing for a new round of protests, conflict and negotiation with the IEA authorities. “Many people across the districts,” he said, “have acquired weapons; if force is used against them, there’s a strong possibility of armed resistance. The Taliban leadership, particularly the provincial leadership, is aware of this local resistance.”
Badakhshan is undoubtedly now playing a central role in the ‘new’ opium economy of Afghanistan, at least as regards the production of raw opium. All interviewees claimed that members of the Taliban were involved in the opium economy locally, either by protecting crops at the time of eradication in exchange for compensation or by taking direct part in the trade of opiates out of the province. Some interviewees alleged that the top provincial authorities were themselves facilitating the smuggling of opiates out of the province, to Tajikistan and, especially to Kabul and further on to the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. The trade itself, they said, is mainly in the hands of drug traders from these two provinces, who retain not only the international contacts and capital to carry on the trade but also benefit from political and tribal connections to the top echelons of the IEA. This was something Shafiqullah from Khash commented on:
In the past four years, we haven’t faced any problems related to cultivation, selling or transport. During the Republic era, there were issues with transporting the drug, but under the Taliban, the pressure is mostly on the farmers who cultivate it. Those involved in buying or transferring the opium don’t face any difficulties.
The disappearance of heroin-processing laboratories – once numerous in Argu and Darayem – could also be playing a role in the direction of greater profits for the traders, who will get a second cut from the transformation of raw opium, now the main produce to exit Badakhshan, into more profitable narcotic substances.
The southwest
Helmand lies at the centre of a region known as the Taliban’s heartland. Ideological support for and personal or family connections and identification with the IEA run deep. No wonder then that despite the importance of the opium economy, the 2022 ban in the province was, to a large extent, obeyed. Cultivation in southern Afghanistan has remained patchy after the IEA began enforcing the ban, as shown in the table below:
| Province | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
| Helmand | 122,045 | 142 | 757 |
| Kandahar | 29,229 | 3,544 | 884 |
| Uruzgan | 14,557 | 647 | 115 |
| Zabul | 1,531 | 882 | 118 |
| Nimruz | 2,429 | 102 | Poppy free |
One farmer in Gereshk district (aka Nahr-e Saraj) interviewed at the end of March, Abdul Rahim, said he cultivated opium in 2024 and 2025, partly on the small patch of land he owns, partly as a sharecropper on other people’s land:
Currently, poppies are blossoming in these areas and in a week’s time, the opium will be ready to harvest and still, there’s no news of the government’s presence or plans to destroy the opium. In Nahr-e-Siraj [district], the government destroyed several areas where opium was cultivated along the roadside, but the land that had been fenced off has been treated like a home and no one would enter it to destroy the opium.
Large tracts of what was officially state-owned, barren land in the Gereshk district of Helmand have been developed into poppy-growing areas by digging deep wells for irrigation managed through solar power and fencing plots of ten to twenty thousand square metres with brick walls of two-three metres in height.[4] This is the land, referred to by Abdul Rahman and interviewees, that, within a fenced area, no matter how large, is considered by the authorities to be within the boundaries of someone’s home and the police must present a court order to enter it, protecting any poppy growing inside it to a great extent.
Another farmer from the same district described another way of hiding poppy: those not growing it inside walls, he said, could sow wheat and poppy seed, mixed together, instead:
First, they harvest the opium crop and then the wheat. From one acre of land planted with wheat and opium, they harvest more than 4.5 kilos of opium sap and between 50 and 70 kilos of wheat. Because a lot of chemical fertilizers are used, both the opium and wheat give good yields. People are very satisfied with the harvest.
Other interviewees from Helmand confirmed that this year’s opium harvest has largely gone unscathed by the IEA eradication campaigns. A Nurzai elder from Naw Zad district interviewed in early April described efforts at eradication so far this year as milder than in 2024:
The people of Musa Qala cultivated a lot of opium last year. The police chief of Helmand province, Mawlawi Mubarak, was from the Alizai tribe and hailed from Musa Qala. He cooperated a lot with his tribe [to protect their crops] at the time of the destruction of opium cultivation and therefore the Commander of the Faithful [Amir Hibatullah] learned of his actions and replaced him. This year, people in Naw Zad district have grown a lot of opium and the government is gently eradicating it in a few places where the quality of opium is bad, filming this, and then showing the video to foreigners. They’ve actually had no dealings with anyone cultivating opium – I grew opium myself last year and have done so again, this year. [Laughing] If there’s no opium, the people of Helmand cannot make a living and so opium must be grown!
A resident of Khakrez district of Kandahar province, interviewed in early June, reported a more pro-active approach in the fight against poppy cultivation by the IEA. However, he cast doubts on the probable results:
This year, almost all the people in the district … cultivated opium in varying degrees and the government arrested a number of them and detained them in the district police headquarters for a few days or a week. The local authorities have taken a pledge from them not to cultivate opium next year, but no one has gone to court for cultivating opium and those who’ve made a pledge and were released say that maybe this district governor won’t be there next year. … Buying and selling in the neighbourhood and village markets is carried out as usual.”
Farmers from the south have also found other ways to grow poppies beyond the reach of the IEA’s authority, including moving to Pakistan, as described by Asmat Khan, an opium farmer and trader who also lives in Musa Qala district:
I know many opium traders who have cultivated opium in the areas between Chaman and Quetta, in Pakistan, both last year and this year. [Once they’ve harvested it] they transport the opium to Helmand through Bahramcha district and process it into heroin in Afghanistan, where other narcotic substances like meth and crystal meth are also processed. But opium is also cultivated in large quantities in the northern areas of Helmand: Musa Qala, Kajaki, Sangin, Dasht-e Semiran in Gereshk, Naw Zad, Washer, Baghni, Baghran and Nawamish.
Other Helmandis have sought to escape police scrutiny or prosecution by renting land in remote valleys of neighbouring provinces, such as Ghor and Daikundi, sowing poppies and paying locals to work the fields. Locals who rented out their land and/or worked it would then be the ones to face police violence if the eradication campaigns began. Akbar, a teacher in Pasaband district of Ghor province, on the border with northern Helmand, said that opium cultivation in his area had increased this year: in the areas of Talmastan, Rauf, Dahan Rauf, Pitab and Dara Korkchak, which are Hazara-majority areas, about 90 per cent of the lands had been leased to opium traders from Baghran and Musa Qala of Helmand province and used to grow poppies. He also said that the land in Kurum, Sini and Sangan valleys, which are part of the Aimaq-inhabited areas of Pasaband district and border Baghran district of Helmand, has also been leased to Pashtun opium traders from Musa Qala and Baghran. “On 23 March 2025, the local authorities of Pasaband district arrested ten landowners from some of these areas and destroyed their crops,” he said, adding that already last year, there had been clashes between the local people and the IEA authorities in the Sini and Sangan valleys over opium cultivation, which resulted in injuries to several women, children and men.
Another interviewee from Pasaband, a small opium trader, updated AAN on the situation in the district by mid-June: “This year,” he claimed, “the people of the area eventually reached an understanding with the district police chief: after harvesting the opium crop, they informed the government that they could destroy the poppies and get the video they needed. This way, no problems arose: the government fulfilled its duty and the locals weren’t harmed.”
Kabir, a driver from Sang-e Takht district of Daikundi province, told of similar developments in his province in the month of April:
In areas and villages far from the district centres, opium traders from Uruzgan province have rented land from people and started spring cultivation. In cold regions, poppy cultivation begins in the month of Hamal [21 March to 20 April] and the sap is ready to be harvested in Saratan [21 June to 20 July]. Local people cannot dare [to grow poppy] on their own, but the Pashtun traders assure them they have connections with powerful people in the government and that the locals will face no problems. Therefore, people are starting to cultivate opium on at least part of their lands, with or without getting a rent [from external traders]. The local government has been silent about opium cultivation so far.
When the drugs ban was announced in 2022, it was largely implemented in the south because, as AAN reported, farmers abided by the new law and the local authorities were steadfast in enforcing it. Another important factor was that the major ‘poppy barons’ of the region, together with many well-to-do farmers, were able to draw down opium stocks they had accumulated during the unprecedented period of over-production between 2017 and 2022. UNODC, in its Afghanistan Drug Insight Volume 4, published recently, estimated that at the end of 2022, opiate stocks in Afghanistan had totalled 13,200 tons, which, it said, could satisfy demand for Afghan opiates until 2027. The ban drove up prices, meaning those opium stocks increased dramatically in value and, as the ban on trade was only weakly enforced, anyone with stocks to sell has benefitted from the cut in production.
High prices as an incentive and as political factor
Currently, the price of opium is falling because of greater production, although it is still high by historical standards. The price climbed from a pre-ban average of USD 100/kg to unprecedented peaks in December 2023 of more than 1,000 USD/kg (AAN) – as high as USD 1,112 per kilogramme in the south and USD 1,088 in Nangrahar, according to Afghan opiates expert David Mansfield. In early February 2024, prices started to decline and in June 2024, they were down to an average of USD 730, which is still far higher than before the ban or before the Taliban capture of power. In 2025, prices have continued to plunge.
According to AAN sources in Helmand, last year, opium reached the record price of USD 1,270 per kilo for one day in mid-2024 and then remained between USD 640 and USD 950 during the summer, before falling back around sowing season. This year, thanks to increased production and availability of opium, prices have fallen markedly, so much so that, according to AAN interviewees, in the northern districts of Helmand, such as Musa Qala, Sangin and Baghran, the price is currently between USD 275 and 400 per kilo. That is down significantly, but still higher than before the ban. However, further fluctuations could be forthcoming. One opium trader from Musa Qala told AAN: “After the Eid ul-Adha holidays and the start of the Iran-Israel war, the opium market has come to a standstill. No one is buying or selling at the moment.”
In contrast to the south, where prices have been declining since the 2023-24 hike, Badakhshan is currently experiencing a slight price increase. The cost of opium in Badakhshan has traditionally been lower than in Helmand, but things may now be changing. Possibly, its dominance in post-ban cultivation has boosted its clout within the internal market. Moreover, opium from Badakhshan is considered to be high quality and unadulterated, especially that coming from rainfed land. A wealthy landowner from Argu, Haji Karim, summed the dynamics up:
Compared to last year, cultivation [in Argu] has decreased slightly, but the price has gone up significantly, by nearly AFN 10,000 per kilo (USD 140). Last year, it sold for around AFN 30,000 per kilo (USD 420), but this year, it’s being sold for about AFN 40,000 (USD 570), despite the slight decrease in cultivation. Some traders and smugglers paid in advance, expecting the price to rise. Those who sold early at AFN 30,000 (USD 420) did not benefit much, while those who waited are now selling at a higher price.
He said that in his area, most of the land is “organic and rainfed” and that opium grown there is particularly valued:
Opium grown on rainfed land tends to fetch a higher price due to its perceived quality and purity. … Last year, it was sold at around AFN 25,000 (USD 350) per kilo. This year, including leftover stock from last year, prices have risen to about AFN 38,000 (USD 540) per kilo for non-irrigated, high-quality opium.
For opium grown with chemical fertilisers and on irrigated land, Haji Karim said, the price ranges from AFN 25,000 to 28,000 (USD 350 – 400) per kilo.
The high prices undoubtedly continue to be a major incentive for farmers to venture into opium cultivation. In the balance of risk versus reward, high prices outweigh the danger of crop eradication, so long as any eradication is not total: farmers and landowners need to be able to save at least part of the harvest by, for example, varying where they cultivate it, or reaching a compromise with the local authorities. Moreover, high prices create their own incentives for officials to ‘share’ in the benefits of opium cultivation.
The variable enforcement of the ban on poppy cultivation, especially given that trade in opiates is ongoing, could foster discontent in regions where opium has been a mainstay of livelihoods, but has not been grown since 2022. A further increase in opium production could also spur competition among rival networks for access to the profits. The opium conflict in Badakhshan, for example, must be seen in the context of broader tensions within the province. As explored in an AAN paper from last year, in contrast to the early years of the IEA, Badakhshan has recently seen a more direct and ruthless management by the Taliban’s central leadership, aimed at replacing local officials with more trusted core members and exploiting more directly the province’s resources, especially its minerals. In Badakhshan, such a trend easily feeds into a narrative, common to many northern provinces, of a Pashtun-dominated IEA central leadership progressively replacing non-Pashtun Taliban locally. However, economic interests might blur the boundaries of political and ethnic divides.
The opium industry, however diminished, remains an important factor in the overall Afghan economy. The lack of real agricultural alternatives, depleting stockpiles and rapid demise of foreign aid may yet drive a resurgence of opium cultivation to pre-ban levels. However, that would surely entail a public renouncement of the ban. So far, that has not been forthcoming. Indeed, in his sermon to mark Eid ul-Adha on 7 June, Amir Hibatullah referred to the ongoing ban: “Narcotics are prohibited in Afghanistan,” he said, “not for gaining leverage with the world, but based on the command of Islamic law,” (listen here to the RTA report, between 3:45 and 4:30). However hard the ban is hitting Afghanistan’s farmers, any let-up in official policy seems, as yet, unlikely.
Edited by Kate Clark
References
| ↑1 | The IEA ban, announced in April 2022, concerns not only the cultivation and production of opium, but also the use, trade and transport of all illegal narcotic drugs. While the cultivation ban has been enforced rigorously, the processing and trading of narcotics has been far less vigorously/not enforced, as AAN documented in its earlier reports (see here, for example). |
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| ↑2 | Opium poppy is more lucrative than almost any other crop and far more so than the main alternative, wheat. It also grows well in dry conditions, an advantage in a country seeing more climate crisis-induced droughts. Opium paste stores well and so can be used for credit and savings over the medium term. Poppy is also one of the best crops for labourers, as it requires weeding during the growing season and is labour-intensive to harvest. |
| ↑3 | In February 2025, AAN reported on how Afghans bringing capital, manpower and expertise to poppy farming in Pakistani Baluchistan. Recent analysis by opium expert David Mansfield has also shown a dramatic increase in poppy cultivation in Baluchistan, with the crop occupying as much as seventy per cent of agricultural land in some areas, and making the total area of poppy cultivation in Pakistan now larger than that in Afghanistan (Alcis). |
| ↑4 | See AAN reporting from April 2022 by Fazl Rahman Muzhary, One Land, Two Rules (10): Three case studies on Taleban sales of state land. |
