New research suggests that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan will drop to record-low levels in 2024, due to the ban on the crop imposed by the Taliban government two years ago.
The findings, released this week by Alcis, a geospatial analytics firm, are based on high-resolution satellite mapping of 14 out of the 34 Afghan provinces.
“These 14 provinces were responsible for 92% of the country’s total poppy cultivation in 2022, cultivating 201,725 hectares out of a total of 219,978 hectares grown,” according to the study published on Thursday.
“In 2023, cultivation in these provinces had fallen to 15,648 hectares (50% of the crop that year), and in 2024, only 3,641 hectares of poppy were grown,” it said.
“This year, as in 2023, it is expected that poppy cultivation will be at close to historically low levels,” said Alcis.
The Afghan provinces in focus include Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, and Farah in the south and southwest and Nangarhar and Baghlan in the east and north.
The Taliban banned poppy cultivation and production eight months after the then-insurgent group reclaimed power from an internationally backed Afghan government in August 2021.
The following year, Afghanistan still supplied about 80% of the global illegal opiate demand and 95% of Europe's heroin in 2022, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, or UNODC. But the U.N. agency noted in its 2024 World Drug Report that the ban had reduced opium production in the impoverished country by 95%.
The Alcis study warns there are pockets of resistance to the Taliban’s ban, particularly in the remote, northeastern border province of Badakhshan.
“Widespread [poppy] cultivation persists” in the province, the study noted, and the Taliban’s eradication efforts have been met with violence, leaving at least five people, including three Taliban soldiers, dead in April.
“The events in Badakhshan and elsewhere, where farmers have responded to the ban by abandoning important cash crops, growing staple food crops such as wheat, and leaving land fallow, suggest the Taliban’s poppy ban is fragile and will become more difficult to enforce in the future,” Alcis cautioned.
The firm noted that without the income brought in by opium production, many Afghan farmers are struggling to earn a livelihood. It said without markets for cash-producing crops and an increase in non-farm opportunities, the Taliban may face “further unrest and further outmigration.”
The Taliban takeover has led to deepening economic troubles in Afghanistan, mainly attributed to international financial and banking sector sanctions. It has also exacerbated a long-running Afghan humanitarian crisis.
The country remains a global pariah largely because of the Taliban’s curbs on women’s access to education and work, deterring the international community from formally recognizing the de facto Afghan government and offering any financial aid.
On Tuesday, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told a national conference in Kabul that the drug ban had led to immense economic pressures and severe hardships for Afghans already reeling from the effects of years of war and natural disasters. He lamented the ongoing lack of international cooperation in response.
“The illegal production of drugs has ceased. The [more than 4 million] addicts [in Afghanistan] are now in need of medical treatment while the farmers need livelihoods and employment,” Muttaqi said.
“Regrettably, the international community has failed to fulfill its responsibility in this matter. Instead, they have imposed sanctions on Afghan trade, travel, and banking sectors in breach of the universal fundamental human rights,” he added.
