Cheap solar panels are boosting the Afghan poppy crop with cultivation close to its highest level since United Nations monitoring began in 1994.
The ability to drill wells and, more recently, to extract water from them cheaply with solar power is transforming the landscape of southern Afghanistan, according to The Economist newspaper.
Between 2002 and 2018, some 3,600 square kilometres in southwestern Afghanistan were reclaimed for cultivation from the desert.
According to the U.S. military, Afghanistan’s opium poppy harvest produces about 90 percent of the world’s illicit heroin.
Opium helps to fund the Taliban, Afghanistan’s main insurgent group - link
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