Resurgence and Reduction: Explanations for Changing Levels of Opium Poppy Cultivation in Nangarhar and Ghor in 2006-07

This case study looks at changes in opium poppy cultivation from 2005-06 to 2006-07 in two provinces of Afghanistan: Nangarhar and Ghor. Drawing on three years of fieldwork, it highlights that rural households cultivating opium poppy do not necessarily generate a gross per capita income either above the subsistence level of a dollar a day or greater than non-poppy cultivating households in the same province. This report is one of seven multi-site case studies undertaken during the second stage of AREU’s three-year study, “Applied Thematic Research into Water Management, Livestock and the Opium Economy.”