In Hard Times, Afghan Farmers Are Turning to Opium for Security
The New York Times
The war’s intense conclusion and a drought combined to wipe out the famous Afghan pomegranate harvest in Kandahar Province, during a devastating national economic crisis.
ARGHANDAB, Afghanistan — Abdul Hamid’s pomegranate trees were scarred from bullets and shrapnel. The river was low and the land dry. There was no profit anymore from the fruit that made his district in southern Afghanistan so renowned for something other than war.
So this month, Mr. Hamid’s field hands began destroying his 800 or so pomegranate trees in Kandahar’s Arghandab district. He looked on as the century-old orchard, farmed for generations by his family, was turned into a graveyard of twisted trunks, discarded fruit and churned earth.
“There’s no water, no good crops,” Mr. Hamid, 80, said, the steady burp of a chain saw drowning out his bleak assessment. The lack of rain and diminishing well water had made it nearly impossible to irrigate the trees year-round, leaving portions of this year’s harvest burned from dehydration. The Taliban’s military campaign over the last year didn’t help.
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