{"id":3488,"date":"2026-10-29T15:03:59","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T10:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3488"},"modified":"2026-10-29T15:03:59","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T10:03:59","slug":"afghanistans-poppy-ban-falters-as-farmers-struggle-to-survive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=3488","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan\u2019s poppy ban falters as farmers struggle to survive"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Carpets still hang on the walls of Mohammad Dawood\u2019s home in a northern Afghanistan village, and ornate mirrors still catch the light, relics of the years when a single poppy harvest could carry his family through the year.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But the 28-year-old says \u200bhe now spends his days bent over cotton and wheat in fields that barely provide a living.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were doing well,\u201d he said in an interview in his home in the Baba Yusuf village of Balkh province. \u201cNow, my children \u200care malnourished.\u201d<\/p>\n

In years gone by, Afghanistan\u2019s poppy fields produced about 80% of the world\u2019s opium, used in the manufacture of morphine as well as in illegal drugs like heroin.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, the Taliban began enforcing an opium ban so strict that poppy all but vanished from Afghanistan\u2019s fields.<\/p>\n

But now their Supreme Leader\u2019s edict is beginning to fray, worn down by a practical problem: legal crops no longer pay, and many Afghan farmers say they are struggling to feed their children.<\/p>\n

Some are turning back to poppy, and cultivation rose sharply this year, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime reported on Thursday, in a reversal that could reshape heroin markets \u200bas far away as Europe.<\/p>\n

Many farmers \u201cdon\u2019t have any other choice than to go back to poppy cultivation,\u201d Polleak Ok Serei, UNODC\u2019s country representative for Afghanistan, told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Dawood said he is still complying with the ban. But on a bad day, he makes \u200bone-fortieth of what he used to make with poppy, he said.<\/p>\n

Not all of his neighbours are complying. Balkh, which UNODC found to be poppy-free last year, is growing poppy again this year, the agency \u2060reported, although few farmers would dare admit it amid continued Taliban scrutiny.<\/p>\n

Cultivation across Afghanistan more than quadrupled this year from 2025 to an estimated 43,300 hectares, according to satellite imagery analysed by the UN.<\/p>\n

Farmers now hide the poppies from Taliban officials inside cereal fields and behind \u200bmud walls.<\/p>\n

Cultivation is still only at about a quarter of the 177,000 hectares planted in 2021, the year before the ban was imposed by the Taliban.<\/p>\n

But opium sales in Afghanistan generated an estimated $525 million this year, the highest figure since 2018 except 2022, when \u200bthe Taliban\u2019s ban made prices skyrocket, UNODC said.<\/p>\n

The Taliban rejected the report\u2019s findings, saying actual cultivation was about half the UN estimate and that poppy eradication efforts continued.<\/p>\n

The Taliban-run Interior Ministry did not respond to a request for comment by Reuters.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Falling farm incomes and child malnutrition<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In the country\u2019s farmlands, aid groups say, the economic pressure has become severe.<\/p>\n

The toll is increasingly visible among children. UN agencies warned this month that 10 out of Afghanistan\u2019s 34 provinces had critical levels of child malnutrition this year and the number could climb to 14 in 2027.<\/p>\n

Despite better harvests, they said, high costs and low crop prices are squeezing poorer farmers and \u200blimiting families\u2019 access to food.<\/p>\n

Foreign aid cuts and the Taliban\u2019s international isolation over their crackdown on women\u2019s rights have also played a significant role, diplomats say.<\/p>\n

But at the Alam Khil health centre in Balkh, doctors and patients primarily blamed declining farm income for the growing number \u200bof severe malnutrition cases the clinic treats.<\/p>\n

Outside the clinic, Tahira, whose husband grows cotton, waited for treatment with one of her four children, 7-month-old Benjamin, who was suffering from fever and diarrhoea.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe doctors say he is malnourished,\u201d she said, adding that the family was barely making ends meet. \u201cOur lives used \u200cto be good.\u201d<\/p>\n

The clinic \u2060is surrounded by cotton fields, where white tufts still waited to be picked.<\/p>\n

Salima Mohammadi, a nutrition nurse at the clinic, said many families had struggled to find another crop that could support them since poppy disappeared from local fields.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople own farmland,\u201d she said, \u201cbut agricultural yields decrease year after year.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/a>International fallout<\/strong><\/h3>\n

What happens in fields like these will have repercussions far beyond Afghanistan. A full return to poppy production would have major implications for global drug markets, analysts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cCombine this with the active trafficking networks within the country and the resilient smuggling operations to get the opiates out of the country, and you have a very bleak prediction for the future,\u201d said Paddy Ginn, an analyst with the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime.<\/p>\n

Until the ban, the crop from the country\u2019s poppy fields fuelled health crises across the world, corruption along the trafficking routes that \u200bcarried it to Europe as heroin and deadly clashes between counter-narcotics \u200bforces and smugglers.<\/p>\n

After 2022, pre-ban stockpiles initially cushioned the global \u2060shortage and blunted price spikes in Europe, giving Afghan farmers less reason to openly defy the ban. But UNODC warned on Thursday that those stockpiles may be running out, strengthening the incentive to plant again.<\/p>\n

The Taliban regard the ban as one of their signature achievements and have cited it in their efforts to win international legitimacy.<\/p>\n

But Taliban officials themselves have publicly acknowledged the challenges in recent years. Amir Khan Muttaqi, the \u200bTaliban\u2019s foreign minister, said at a meeting this month that \u201csupport for alternative livelihoods for farmers\u201d was crucial to \u201censure the continuation and strengthening of this campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

But UNODC\u2019s Ok Serei said there \u201cwas not enough support \u200bfor alternative livelihoods\u201d either from the Taliban \u2060government or the international community.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Drought, wheat and cotton prices squeeze farmers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Taliban\u2019s first ban, in 2000, collapsed about a year later, when US-led forces drove them from power after the September 11, 2001, attacks.<\/p>\n

The current ban has lasted far longer, but the farmers expected to uphold it face harsher conditions than a generation ago. Recurring droughts have shrunk rivers and canals.<\/p>\n

Drought has choked off much of the fresh water in the fields around Baba Yusuf, said Gul Nazar, a 56-year-old landowner, leaving well water so briny that it damages crops.<\/p>\n

Legal alternatives have faltered, too. Wheat barely covers its costs, farmers \u2060in Baba Yusuf said. \u200bCotton prices have fallen by about two-thirds amid a sudden nationwide glut, Gul Nazar said, a slump he partly blames on Pakistan\u2019s closure of the border late last \u200byear, which cut off a key buyer.<\/p>\n

Higher-value crops promoted by aid groups, such as orchard fruit or nuts, take years to establish and depend on reliable water and open export routes.<\/p>\n

More than four in five households in Balkh and two nearby provinces reported in a UNODC survey last year that they had replaced none or only part \u200bof their lost poppy income.<\/p>\n

Gul Nazar said he would not grow poppy again if his family\u2019s living conditions improved. But if they grew worse, he said, he could not promise the same.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen a person becomes hungry,\u201d he said, \u201cthey will do anything.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carpets still hang on the walls of Mohammad Dawood\u2019s home in a northern Afghanistan village, and ornate mirrors still catch the light, relics of the years when a single poppy harvest could carry his family through the year. But the 28-year-old says \u200bhe now spends his days bent over cotton and wheat in fields that barely provide a living. \u201cWe were doing well,\u201d he said in an interview in his home in the Baba Yusuf village of Balkh province. \u201cNow, my children \u200care malnourished.\u201d In years gone by, Afghanistan\u2019s poppy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3488\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}