Tropic of Chaos_ Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence - Christian Parenti [51]
The poppy boom was not unique to Wardak. All across Afghanistan the crop had made a comeback, in large part due to the drought. UN researchers believe that 1.7 million of Afghanistan’s 28.5 million inhabitants are directly involved in poppy cultivation, with many more working in processing, trafficking, money lending and laundering, and other associated activities. Warlords tax farmers and traffickers alike, and thanks to Hamid Karzai’s policy of appeasement, many now hold official positions, further facilitating their exploitation of the drug economy.
But the Taliban benefit as well. First of all, they tax the drug trade, just as they tax all trade. Second, they do not destroy poppy crops. In areas loyal to the Taliban, farmers do not have to worry about eradication or the abuse and bribery that go with it.
In Wardak, as the night went on, with dinner, then tea, then cards and more photos, the men became increasingly comfortable and explained the details of the poppy industry. “Poppy is cheap to plant. You can find seeds in any bazaar,” Mahid, a veteran who lost a leg when he stepped on a landmine in the 1990s, told me. In Wardak, poppy has two seasons; in hotter and colder climates, only one season is possible. The first crop, planted in March and harvested in June and July, is always the better one. Of the three flower colors—red, white, and purple—white is the best.
“After you plant and water the poppy, it sprouts in fifteen days,” Mr. Al Qaeda explained. “Then you must weed the crop and keep weeding until the plants are bigger than the weeds. In three months, they blossom. Seed pouches emerge and grow in the blossom, and then the flower falls away, and the seed pouch continues to grow. Then we scratch the seedcase with a ghoza [a small, homemade trowel with a serrated edge of six teeth. From the wounds, sticky white milk emerges]. You scrape the poppy in the morning and then collect the sap in the evening, when it is more sticky and brown. A little from each flower and then you have a ball, and that dries and is the opium,” Mr. Al Qaeda said, grinning.
In most parts of Afghanistan, a farmer can milk each seed case up to seven times. Eventually, it is tapped out and left to dry, before being harvested for the next planting. The seeds are also used to make edible oil and are sometimes boiled into a tea that mothers use to drug their infants during the long hours of work.
To illustrate the economic influence of poppy, the one-legged Mahid starts talking about land measurements. The unit here is a jerib, about half an acre. The men in Wardak say that from one jerib farmers can usually get twenty-eight kilograms of opium, which they can sell for up to $5,000. Alternatively, one jerib of wheat might earn a farmer $100, or it might not bring in any money at all, depending on weather and prices.
In some areas, smugglers make loans that are repaid in opium. The system in Wardak seems to be more streamlined: farmers borrow from shopkeepers and repay them in cash when they’ve been paid by the smugglers. “In the last three years, many farms have got out of debt because of poppy. No other crop compares to it. And with the drought, we only have 10 percent of our apples and wheat. These crops use so much water compared to poppy. And the wheat is almost worthless,” Mr. Al Qaeda said before turning back to the cards.
“We have many former Taliban and mujahideen commanders here who are getting angry at America because of what is happening in Palestine and Iraq and because the economy here is no good,” Mr. Al Qaeda remarked. “Cutting down poppy will only make them more angry.”
Out of Nangarhar
Sadly, the dialectical connections between climate change, war, and environmental degradation become mutually reinforcing. The Worldwatch Institute’s Michael Renner summarized it well: “Three decades of armed conflict have displaced a large portion of the population, impeded access to farmland