KABUL, Afghanistan — Mohammad Ashrafy waited for the death of the family figurehead, a respected mullah, before he finally planted opium for the first time this year.
And sometimes, when he gazed out over the huge stretch of poppies he grew on his land in the Ghor province of central Afghanistan this spring and summer, he felt guilty, recalling the admonishments of his late uncle, Mullah Mortaza Khan.
"We know growing opium is against Islam, but we have to do it," said Ashrafy, 38. "I was the only person left here not growing it and there was no mullah telling me to stop."
The United Nations estimates that half of Ghor's farmers don't earn enough to cover basic needs. So exhortations to plant alternative crops seem doomed when a grower can make about $5,200 from an acre of opium but just $121 from an acre of wheat.
Ashrafy and his brother support 35 relatives, including the widows and children of two other brothers killed in the country's long wars.
Last year, Ashrafy grew wheat, but it provided only half of what the family needed. "If I don't grow [opium]," he said, "I'm sure we'll die because we cannot grow enough wheat for ourselves."
So he prays to make peace with Allah.
Throughout Afghanistan, thousands who had not grown opium before began harvesting their crops in May, taught by experienced poppy farmers who have been traveling to new growing areas to share their skills.
"It's much easier than wheat and you get more money too," said Ashrafy, interviewed in Kabul. "Last year, [opium] was about 10% in our area. This year it's 100%."
Afghanistan regained its position as the largest opium producing country last year, yielding 3,750 tons, and production is expected to be as high this year, the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime reports. Seventy-five percent of the world's heroin, which is obtained from opium poppies, comes from Afghanistan.
At a June congressional hearing in Washington, Bernard Farhi, chief of the operations branch of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said opium brought Afghanistan $1.2 billion last year, equaling the total of international aid to the country in that period. In a recent report, the International Monetary Fund said opium accounted for as much as half of Afghanistan's gross domestic product, amounting to $2.5 billion in exports.
