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Access to Labour: The Role of Opium in the Livelihood Strategies of Itinerant Harvesters Working in Helmand Province, Afghanistan

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STRATEGIC STUDY #4

Final Report June 1999

Fieldwork suggests that itinerant harvesters in Helmand in 1999 came from a wide range of areas within Afghanistan and from a number of refugee camps from across the border in Pakistan (see Table 1). In total, respondents travelled from ten different provinces in Afghanistan to work as itinerant harvesters in Helmand, including provinces in the north, south, and central regions.

Yet despite this diversity, almost 70% of the itinerant harvesters interviewed came from just two provinces, Ghor and Helmand itself (see Map on inside cover).

Respondents from Helmand came from seven districts. Most of the major opium poppy producing districts from both lower and upper Helmand were represented, including Baghran, Nawzad, Nad-e-ali, Nahr-e-Saraj, and Marja (see Table 2). The timing of the opium poppy harvest across the districts of Helmand generally varies with the different altitudes and climatic conditions present, allowing itinerant harvesters to travel between districts and conduct as many as three harvests within the province. Indeed, 80% of respondents from Helmand were found to cultivate opium poppy in their own districts and, during periods of agricultural underemployment on their own land, worked as itinerant harvesters in other districts within the province. Almost 40% of the respondents who resided in Helmand Province came from Baghran. The late harvest and small landholdings in Baghran would seem to explain the prominence of respondents from this area amongst those interviewed.

All the respondents who reported that they resided in Ghor province reported that they were Taimani.11/ They came from 5 districts, including Pasaband, Taiwara, Chaghcharan and Sharaq. The three districts closest to Helmand, Pasaband, Sharaq and Taiwara were the source of 20 of the 23 respondents interviewed from Ghor (see Table 3).

The great majority of respondents from Ghor owned land and after the completion of the opium poppy season in Helmand, reported that they would travel back to Ghor to harvest their rainfed wheat. A number of the Taimani respondents reported that they not only worked in Helmand during the opium poppy harvest but during the poppy weeding season from January until March, as well.

Those respondents who had travelled from other provinces to work in Helmand typically came from opium poppy cultivating districts. Indeed, aside from those interviewed from Ghor and Balochistan, only six respondents resided in districts that did not cultivate opium poppy, including Shiwaki in Kabul province and Chak-e-Wardak, in Wardak province. Consequently, in total 55% of respondents were found to come from opium cultivating districts.

However, it is important to recognise that it is not necessarily familiarity with opium cultivation within the district of residence that acts as the motivation for individuals to work as itinerant harvesters in other districts. Indeed, fieldwork has revealed that it is often the experience individuals obtain as itinerant harvester that can result in an area becoming an opium cultivating district. For instance, two respondents who resided in Shindand in Farah province reported that they would return to the district to work as an itinerant harvester in their own village after completing the opium poppy harvest in Helmand. Fieldwork for both the Annual Opium Poppy Survey for 1999 and the final phase of Strategic Study 1: An Analysis of the Process of Expansion of Opium Poppy Cultivation into New Districts in Afghanistan has revealed that opium poppy cultivation has begun in Shindand in the 1998/99 growing season and itinerant harvesters working in Helmand would appear to be a major cause of its cultivation in the district.12/ Fieldwork in the districts of Logar, Mehtarlam and Qargahayi in the eastern region of Afghanistan has produced similar findings.13/

The majority of respondents were from the Pashtoon tribes, including Alizi, Noorzi, Popalzai, Alikozai and Khogiani. Pashtoon respondents were from a variety of tribes with no one tribe dominating. The number of provinces from which respondents came from and the resettlement of different tribes in the canal area of lower Helmand during the 1960's and 1970's probably explains the diversity of Pashtoon tribes represented amongst those interviewed. Apart from the Pashtoons and the Taimani from Ghor, only one Tajik and one Baloch were found amongst the 75 respondents. Even the respondent from Badghis in the north, was from the Hotak tribe of the Pashtoons.

5. The socio-economic status of itinerant harvesters

Almost two thirds of respondents interviewed for this Study reported that they owned land in their districts of residence. Landholdings amongst these households varied from less than one sixth of one hectare to four hectares, with an average of four fifths of one hectare. The highest incidence of landownership was amongst those respondents who came from Ghor where almost 85% were found to own land in their districts of residence. However, the vast majority of this land was reported to be of a limited size and rainfed, severely constraining its productivity (see Box 1).

Whilst a further 10% of respondents indicated that they were landless but were employed as sharecroppers in other districts within Helmand province, one quarter of those interviewed reported that they had no land at all. Those respondents without land indicated that when they were not working as itinerant opium poppy harvesters they earned their livelihoods through off-farm and non-farm income earning opportunities, including animal husbandry, and brick making and construction. Indeed, whilst the majority of respondents indicated that they had travelled from their district specifically to obtain work on the opium poppy harvest, a number of respondents reported that they had only taken work in the opium poppy fields due to their failure to find wage labour opportunities in the local area.

Six of those respondents without land were students who claimed that they wished to continue their studies and were merely working during the opium poppy harvest to support their families and the cost of their studies. Four of these respondents were from refugee camps in Balochistan, Pakistan whilst the remaining two were from madrassas in Musa Qala and Kajaki. Indeed, during the time of the fieldwork in Helmand many of the madrassas were found to be empty due to the number of students working as itinerant opium poppy harvesters.

This finding is supported by the fieldwork for the Socio-Economic Baseline Survey which suggested that 35% of respondents with sons attending the madrassa removed them during the period of the opium poppy harvest.14/ Moreover, a number of respondents and key informants have reported that both students and teachers were actively engaged in the harvesting of opium poppy in both the eastern and southern regions of Afghanistan in 1999. Indeed, one of the respondents from Ghor reported that he was the village mullah.

Amongst those respondents that owned land there was a general consensus that their land was insufficient to cater for their basic needs. For instance, one respondent from Ghor indicated that sixteen family members were dependent on one fifth of one hectare for their direct entitlement. Given these constraints respondents reported that they, and other male family members, sought short term labour opportunities in other districts and provinces during times of agricultural underemployment in their own area. Indeed, both those respondents who indicated that they owned land in their districts of residence and those who sharecropped land, reported their work as itinerant harvesters was timed around the harvest of their own crops.15/

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11/ The Taimani are one of the four Aimaq tribes. They occupy the south western portion of the Ghor mountains between Herat and Farah. For more details on the Taimani see Bellew (1891) An Enquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan. Vanguard Books: Lahore.

12/ The final report for Strategic Study 1:� An Analysis of the Process of Expansion of Opium Poppy Cultivation into New Districts in Afghanistan will be based on fieldwork in approximately 12 districts from each of the main opium regions in Afghanistan, including the north. It is expected to be available by September 1999.

13/ See Strategic Study 1: An Analysis of the Process of Expansion of Opium Poppy Cultivation into New Districts in Afghanistan (Preliminary Report, July 1998).

14/ See Socio-Economic Baseline Survey for UNDCP Target Districts in Afghanistan (forthcoming).

15/ These findings would see to be supported by Afghanaid's fieldwork in Saghar and Teywara in Ghor which suggests that 'there are no off-farm income sources locally, young men and boys migrate seasonally to neighbouring provinces and countries looking for employment and remit income to their homes'. See Afghanaid (1998) A Baseline Survey Report: Chaghcharan, Teywara and Saghar Districts, Ghor Province. Afghanaid: Peshawar.