In Afghanistan opium harvesting has started. In the Helmand province – where we find the 40 percent of poppy plantations – a record harvesting is foreseen  thanks to the exceptional spring showers, with a productivity reaching 150 Kg per hectare.

A particular year. This overproduction, on one side is slashing market prices, fallen from the over 100 dollars per Kg during the past season to 80-90 dollars. On the other has caused an increase in the demand for farm workers in the fields, necessary to complete the unexpected harvesting before the heat will dry the poppies out. A third element must be added: differently from last year now Talibans control the majority of the province and in many districts fightings and bombings happen daily. These three elements joined together have determined a economic conflict between land owners and seasonal workers, who have, this year, a greater bargaining power compared to employers and are therefore not satisfied any more with the past years measly salaries.

Seasonal workers' revolt. “During past years we begged for work and accepted to be paid with one tenth, one fifteenth of the opium we harvested”, Abdul Jamil says, one of the thousands seasonal workers coming from all over the country who have invaded Lashkargah during these days. “But this year the situation is upside down: it's the land owners desperately needing our arms not to waste their crops. And moreover the risk is higher, as we work in zones controlled by Talibans. Therefore we joined together and asked to be paid much more: we asked for half of the picked crop by threatening a strike, but the owners protested with the governor, asked for his intervention and in the end we agreed for one quarter”.
Strange but true. The government authorities we in Western countries believe committed to fight the opium plague in reality act as trade union mediators between farmers and pickers to fix the right labour price.

Government mediation. Sunday, April 8th – the same Talibans slit the throat of Ajmal Nashkbandi, Mastrogiacomo's interpreter – farm workers threatened a wage strike.
Field owners, feeling cornered, decided to ask for the government help. About a hundred opium growers staged a protest manifestation in Lashkargah downtown, in front of the governor's building, asking him to join the debate. “We have spent all our money to grow opium and now the government has the duty to help us negotiating with the workers, otherwise we risk to loose the harvest”, a land owner declared that day to a journalist from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.
Helmand governor, Asadullah Wafa, immediately answered the appeal by fixing a wage ceiling equal to one fifth of the picked opium. A compromise satisfying both owners and field workers, who have returned working in the fields.

Enrico Piovesana