According to the UN, prices and opium traffic have exploded since the return to power of Islamists who nevertheless claim to want to suppress this culture. In question, precisely this potential ban with which climatic vagaries and parallel economy mix.
by Jacques Follorou
After having put the international community on the back by prohibiting school with girls over 12, the Taliban, returned to power in Kabul on August 15, 2021, are now accused by the United Nations of the United Nations ‘Having exploded prices and opium and heroin traffic. The Afghan Islamists denounce a trial of intent as they claim, on the contrary, wanting to suppress this culture on their territory for religious reasons.
Everything started from a press release, published on 1 er
é> November , from the Office of Nations United against drugs and crime (ONUDC) making a direct link between “taking power by the Taliban in August 2021” and the sharp increase in the culture of opium poppy in Afghanistan. The UN announced an increase of 32 % of the agricultural areas reserved for this culture compared to 2021, “to reach 233,000 hectares”. At the same time, the prices of opium “have soared”, said the Onudc. The estimated value of this production tripled in one year, going from $ 425 million in 2021 to $ 1.4 billion (same amounts in euros) in 2022, for about 6,200 tonnes of opium, or harvesting ” more profitable recorded for years “. This represents 29 % of the country’s total agricultural value, compared to 9 % a year earlier.
But this high rise in prices is not due to the rise in demand or production. The raw figures mask a paradoxical reality in which religious dogma, rural world, climatic hazards and parallel economy telescop. First of all, if the area occupied by the culture of the poppy has increased, this does not mean that the production itself exploded. Indeed, the yield at the hectare, in 2022, fell by 10 % compared to 2021. What, all the same, produce from 350 to 580 tonnes of heroine of exportable quality (with purity between 50 % and 70 %). This decline is essentially due to the serious drought that affected the country at the start of the year.
Furthermore, this increase should be put into perspective. In 2021, the price of the poppy paid to Afghan peasants was the lowest since the UN produced these estimates. A weakness of the courses which had no direct link with the takeover of the Taliban, intervened on August 15, since the harvest spreads from April to July. This low -cost opium was the result of a very sustained production for four years, which saturated the market and dropped its value. In 2017, record year, the culture of opium poppy represented around 328,000 hectares, enough to make 550 to 900 tonnes of exportable quality heroin, for a value between 4.1 and 6.6 billion dollars. Far ahead of the figures of 2022.
You have 52.57% of this article to read. The continuation is reserved for subscribers.