Southern Afghanistan

Southern Afghanistan
ActiveRecorded as grown here since 2000
⛶
Location	Afghanistan
Coordinates	31.61, 65.33
Country	Afghanistan
Provinces/States	Helmand Province,Kandahar Province,Uruzgan Province,Zabul Province,Daykundi Province
Area	157,000 km²
Climate	Arid
Growing history
Dated accessions	2019–2022
Conservation
Populations	none documented yet

Southern Afghanistan is a landrace cannabis growing region of Afghanistan, drawn on the five provinces that make up the Southern region of the cannabis surveys of the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC): Hilmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul and Day Kundi.^: 13 The surveys found cannabis grown in all five provinces in 2011, and estimated that more than half of the country's cannabis cultivation in 2010 lay in this region.^: 13: 12 It holds the Kandahar and Helmand growing areas.

Extent

The surveys report cultivation by province and gather the provinces into six regions for their regional figures; this growing region takes the Southern region's five provinces whole. They are Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul and Daykundi, which the surveys spell Hilmand and Day Kundi.^: 13 The border follows the provincial boundaries and encloses about 157,000 km². Day Kundi was outside the area the surveys covered for cannabis in 2009 and inside it from 2010, when cultivation was found there.^: 12–13

Cannabis in the surveys

The 2009 survey found cannabis a steadier crop in the south than elsewhere: 44 per cent of the Southern region's cannabis farmers had grown it in every year since 2004, against 7 per cent in the other regions, and the survey called it "a more permanent feature of the agricultural portfolio of households" there.^: 17 In 2011, 69 per cent of the region's cannabis farmers also grew opium poppy, and cannabis took 22 per cent of the area they gave to cash crops, against 19 per cent for poppy.^{: 29, 32}

Farmers in the region named three varieties in 2009: Mazari, Kandahari and Spera botay (Brown Bush, in the survey's translation).^: 15 Mazari (Balkhi) was the variety most often reported in the region in 2010 and 2011, at 54 and 52 per cent of farmers' reports.^: 19: 37

In the Southern, Eastern and Central regions farmers counted the first and second yields of sieving the threshed plants together for their first grade of resin powder, or garda, and a few southern farmers reported a fourth grade.^: 22 The 2009 survey describes a southern way of making hashish by hand: first garda is pressed between the palms until it holds together, lower grades with a little water, and the mass is warmed over a low flame and rubbed again until it is "cooked".^: 26 The same survey called Spin Boldak in Kandahar and Dehnaw in Uruzgan the "most famous" cannabis trading centres in the south.^: 35

Growing Areas

Growing Area	Province
Helmand	Helmand Province
Kandahar	Kandahar Province

Accessions

Accession ID	Name	Collected	Area
ATA-AFG-HEL-0120240001	2024 ATA Lashkar Gah Reproduction		Helmand
DCC-AFG-HEL-0120160001	2016 DCC Afghan Helmand Reproduction		Helmand
RSC-AFG-HEL-0120220001	Helmand General Population 2022	2022	Helmand
RSC-AFG-KAN-0120190001	Kandahar General Population 2019	2019	Kandahar
RSC-AFG-KAN-0120190001-R1	2019 RSC Kandahar Reproduction	2019	Kandahar
VIB-AFG-KAN-0100000001	Kandahar General Population		Kandahar

Recent news

No news items are recorded for this growing region yet.

See also

• Afghanistan
• Central Afghanistan
• Charas
• Hashish