Commemorating the 10th anniversary of the United Nations Guiding Principles on Alternative Development: taking stock and looking forward
Lashkar Bazar, Afghanistan: Gul Agha had a choice.
A farmer from the Helmand province of Afghanistan for 20 years, poverty had led him to resort to cultivating poppy as a means of survival.
But the sudden power shift in August of 2021 – and the quick economic downturn – pushed Gul Agha and many others back into severe poverty. The situation only worsened when the de facto authorities suddenly banned poppy cultivation in April 2022.
Gul Agha needed desperately to find another way to generate income, but he felt as though his existing skills and knowledge limited his options. He considered migrating to a neighbouring country to find work. Or perhaps he could defy the ban and continue cultivating poppy.
At the end, he chose neither, instead connecting with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) Alternative Development programme through his local Community Development Council.
Alternative development initiatives seek to provide sustainable livelihoods to communities that cultivate illicit drug crops because they are unable to obtain sufficient income from legal activities due to conflict or lack of markets, basic infrastructure, or land.
This particular alternative development programme was offering farmers certified cauliflower seeds and fertilizers, as well as training on how to cultivate vegetable crops.
Gul Agha was initially skeptical whether vegetable cultivation would help him make ends meet, as his previous attempts at vegetable farming were unsuccessful. But in the training, he learned that this was due to his lack of certified seeds and fertilizers, which are varieties that have been inspected and tested to ensure that they meet certain standards.
“I was unfamiliar with cauliflower production,” Gul Agha admitted. But during the training, “I learned to sow seeds in the line system; how to protect plants from diseases, pests, and weed; and better ways to harvest, store, and market the produce. I also learned how to prepare natural pesticides.”
Gul Agha now earns 60,000 Afghanis (USD 682) from selling cauliflower in a season from half a jerib (0.2 hectare) of land –8,000 more Afghanis than he had earned from cultivating poppy on the same plot.
Since March 2022, UNODC, with funding from UN Development Programme’s Special Trust Fund for Afghanistan (STFA), has been implementing an alternative livelihoods and food security project in the Lashkargah, Nad-e-Ali and Nahr-e-Siraj districts of Helmand.
The project aims to provide vulnerable Afghan farmers with the opportunity to engage in licit farming to improve household food security and income.
To date, the project has supported 14,217 vulnerable people to grow cereal crops, maize, and wheat – all drought resilient crops that need less water.
Word of Gul Agha’s success quickly spread, and his cauliflower farm has now become a demonstration plot for other farmers in his village. Farmers visit to inspect his produce and learn techniques for producing profitable cauliflower crops. Gul Agha says he is proud that he has become a person of influence in his community.
“I did not know that cauliflower production could be more profitable than poppy,” he marveled.
To learn more about UNODC’s Alternative Development programmes in Afghanistan and elsewhere, click here.
