Pubdate: Wed, 31 Aug 2005
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Tom Coghlan, Daily Telegraph (UK)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/afghanistan

OPIUM PAYS, GRAIN DOESN'T, AFGHAN FARMERS COMPLAIN

HAFI ZAN -- For decades a red carpet of poppies covered the dusty
fields of Nangahar. Now wheat and maize sway in the rare breezes of a
baking Afghan summer. But the farmers who have abandoned the poppy
crop in the face of a British-led campaign against drugs complain that
the rural economy has collapsed.

Nangahar, east of Kabul, could be portrayed as a success story. Last
year it was in the top three Afghan provinces for poppy cultivation.
This year production is down by 80 per cent.

In Kabul this week, Antonio Maria Costa, of the UN Office for Drugs
and Crime, said that such progress was proof that Afghanistan's
enormous narcotics trade "can be constrained". As part of the
campaign, local farmers were cowed with threats and suborned with
pledges of aid.

Now they feel betrayed. "Poppy is food, medicine, health, clothes, all
aspects of life. It was everything for us," said Del Afgha, a former
opium farmer from Hafi Zan, tugging at his ragged clothes. "We were
promised an alternative to poppy. But I can only feed my family for
five months from what I have grown."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin