The Taliban movement has banned all forms of poppy cultivation, whose harvest is used for the production of opiates, following a decision by the Taliban's highest leader Hibatullah Akhundzada in 2022.
More than a hundred people, many of them villagers, have been arrested in an operation against poppy cultivation, said Shafiqullah Hafizi, who leads the anti-narcotics unit in the region of Badakhshan.
In northeastern Afghanistan, farmers have defied the ban on poppy cultivation as the harvests are one of the few real sources of income for farmers. Extensive efforts to steer cultivation towards other crops, including through UN efforts, have previously been difficult to implement – and not facilitated under Taliban rule.
The ban on poppy harvesting simultaneously meant that the harvest volume fell by 95 percent in 2023, with the consequence that poverty gained an even stronger foothold in one of the world's poorest countries. The UN agency Unodc (UN Office on Drugs and Crime) notes in a report from November that poppy cultivation has increased by 19 percent on an annual basis.
