Cheap solar panels boost the Afghan poppy crop

IN HIS FIELD in Zhari district, about ten miles outside Kandahar city, Abdul Samad, a farmer of uncertain age, tends to his onion crop. Sitting on his haunches, a blanket on his shoulders to protect him from the dusty wind, he points to his latest investment: an array of solar panels at the end of the field. They are connected to a pump which pulls up groundwater, for use when the irrigation canals dry up. Before, he used to run the pump with a diesel generator, but the fuel was very expensive. Now he can pump all day. “When there is no water you cannot grow anything,” says Mr Samad.

Solar panels are transforming the landscape of southern Afghanistan. Only 12% of the country is suitable for growing permanent crops, mostly in the valleys of the Arghandab and Helmand rivers (see map). Even there, most farming is dependent on irrigation systems that date back to the 1950s, when dams were built with American aid, if not earlier. The ability to drill wells and, more recently, to extract water from them cheaply with solar power has changed all that. Not only are farmers getting more out of their existing farms, according to a study by David Mansfield of the London School of Economics, they are also creating new ones. Between 2002 and 2018 some 3,600 square kilometres in south-western Afghanistan was reclaimed for cultivation from the desert.