INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has reportedly dropped by 85% following the return to power of the Islamic Emirate, new analysis shows.In
April last year, the IEA&s supreme leader issued a decree prohibiting poppy farming across the country
Almost 18 months later, the ban is being described by experts as &the most successful counter-narcotics effort in human history&.Nationwide
poppy cultivation is below 30,000 hectares for 2023, compared to more than 210,000 hectares in 2022, according to satellite imagery analysis
from Alcis, a geographic information services company, the UK-based Telegraph reported.Helmand, Farah and Nimroz have recorded the greatest
reductions in cultivation, at 99, 95 and 91 percent respectively, Alcis said.&There is now little doubt that farmers across vast swathes of
the country abandoned opium production this year,& the analysis said.After a year-long ban, experts are waiting to see if the IEA&s edict
will last for a second season, which starts each November with the planting of poppy seeds.&We are in uncharted waters,& said Dr David
Mansfield, a UK expert on illicit economies in Afghanistan, in comments that accompanied Alcis& analysis, the Telegraph reported.Graeme
Smith, an Afghanistan expert at Crisis Group, told the Telegraph in July that the IEA&s crackdown has so far been &the most successful
counter-narcotics effort in human history, according to the volume of drugs taken off the market&.However, Mansfield said there &is already
considerable evidence that the current ban has not been uniformly accepted by the rural population or by those within the Taliban&s own
ranks responsible for implementing it.&Alcis& analysis shows that poppy cultivation increased from 13,803 hectares to 15,391 hectares in the
mountainous Badakhshan province throughout 2023
It said there has also been &persistent cultivation in the upper reaches of the mountains of southern Nangarhar&.&When the economic impact
of a ban on poppy cultivation is felt collectively across a growing population, local resistance can quickly escalate, prompting those in
the districts responsible for enforcement to retreat, unwilling to impose further losses on their own families, neighbours, and
communities,& said Mansfield.It&s estimated the Taliban&s poppy ban has wiped out the equivalent of 450,000 full-time jobs in agriculture &
a major hit to an economy still reeling from drought, conflict and cuts to development programmes.The post Afghanistan&s poppy cultivation
falls by 85% under IEA rule first appeared on Ariana News.
