UK Edition
How Britain's mistakes in Helmand fuelled record opium crops
Britain's multi-million pound scheme to cut opium cultivation while troops fought in Helmand only paved the way for a boom in drug production and record harvests, according to new research.
The UK's four-year programme to encourage farmers to grow wheat instead of opium had little direct effect on the drug crop at the time. But it led to a shift in farming patterns which has since seen new fields spring up in desert areas and record levels of opium growth.
Britain's efforts also fed local corruption and fomented resentment against the local authorities it was trying to build, according to the research by a leading expert on Afghanistan's drug production.
The project called the Helmand food zone (HFZ) cost up to £14m a year and was largely funded by Britain, which was under US pressure to show progress in the war on drugs.
“As a consequence of the choices made, the HFZ led to a significant expansion of poppy in the longer term and undermined the Afghan government,” said David Mansfield, a senior fellow at the London School of Economics.
“Locally the HFZ was associated with high levels of corruption sending the message that the government was not there to deliver services to the rural population, but to itself, thereby undermining the state-building objectives donors believed they were backing.”
Afghan opium production has continued to rise in recent years, despite Britain, the US and their allies spending hundreds of millions of pounds to stop it in the past two decades. Production was at its highest recorded level in 2017 and its second highest level ever in 2018, according to United Nations figures.
Britain was given the lead role in anti-narcotics efforts, as part of the international coalition to bolster the new Afghan government against the Taliban. The UK in 2006 also took charge of fighting the Taliban and building a local administration in Helmand, the heartland of opium production. At the time officials often warned that around 90 per cent of heroin on UK streets comes from Afghanistan.
The HFZ saw Britain encourage farmers to replace their opium cash crop with wheat instead, and provide seed and fertiliser to ease the switch. At the same time, those who did not oblige faced having their poppy fields destroyed by the local governor's forces.
At the start of the scheme in 2008, opium harvests did fall and the figures were seized to demonstrate success in Helmand, where scores of British troops were dying each year in a bloody counter insurgency campaign. But the drop was due to temporary market factors, rather than the HFZ, according to the research published by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. High wheat prices and low opium prices made wheat more attractive, regardless of what Britain was doing.
The local governor, Gulab Mangal, oversaw the project and used it to extend his patronage, and buy support, or punish rivals. This fomented hostility and resentment among farmers who accused Mr Mangal of being a British puppet.
Moreover, as the scheme continued, it put people out of work. Farmers did later start to give up opium as more troops arrived and crops came under more scrutiny. But the scheme only gave incentives to landholders, so as these switched crops from labour-intensive opium to easy-to-grow wheat, their tenant farmers were out of a job. These landless farmers and share croppers moved out of central Helmand into desert areas north of the Boghra canal. There they began to grow ever increasing amounts of poppy. When British and US troops left central Helmand, farmers in the food zone also began to turn back to the crop. By 2017, poppy growth in the area once covered by the zone was higher than when it had started.
Mr Mansfield said: “It played out well to start with, but the reality was there was an inevitable head of steam building up that led to a shift of both population and poppy over the canal into the deserts, and a growing resentment towards the government within the food zone.”
A DFID spokesman said: "The UK, alongside other countries, supported Afghan farmers to grow alternative crops to poppies and improve their livelihoods during the challenging conflict in Helmand. Lessons learned there have been applied to new projects. Strengthening the economy and security over the longer term will make it easier to tackle the drugs trade."